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“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.” (1 Peter 3:8, NIV)

Whether in the human family into which we were born, or the spiritual family of God into which we both chose and were chosen; success depends on: Displaying love for one another.

Arguably the best-known description of what love is — and is not — is found in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13: “Love is patient; it is kind; love does not envy; it does not strut; it is not proud; love does not force itself on others; it isn’t always ‘me first’; it doesn’t fly off the handle; love doesn’t keep score of the offenses of others; it doesn’t revel when others grovel. . .” (Credit: New International Version and The Message translations)

Love is as love does. – Luther

Tagged like-mindedness, love, love for others, the book of 1 Peter

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“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48, NIV)

God expects His children — every one of them — to be as He is.

If it is otherwise, either God is wrong for expecting something of us that we are incapable of achieving; or we do not have His “DNA” and God is lying when He claims paternity.

Today’s scripture verse follows Jesus’ command — with explicit examples — to love our enemies. It is difficult to love our enemies because love is very personal. We crave it only from those who matter to us; and we give it only to those we deem worthy.

To love as God loves is the litmus test of our progress toward divine perfection. Succeed at this one thing, and everything else we do falls into place. Fail at this one thing, and nothing else we do (no matter how spiritual or sacrificial) matters.

The Gospel of John reminds us that “God so loved the world (the same “world” that would abuse and murder His only begotten Son) that God, nevertheless, gave. . .” (John 3:16).

When a person accepts the way of Jesus, the Spirit of God is seal of God’s paternity. The Spirit is the power to be perfect as our Father is perfect. The Spirit is the strength to love.

It is not easy but, with God, it is possible — and expected. – Luther

Tagged love, paternity, perfection, the book of Matthew

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“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:13-14, NIV)

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “compassion” as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”

To begin to see ourselves as God see us is the first step toward a new frontier of compassion toward others. To regard ourselves as something other than “dust” — that is, as transitory and humble — is to ignore the lessons of history, the evidence of biology, and the propositions of theology.

We may be able to fool ourselves as to our true make-up because everything seems to be going our way (something the scriptures refer to as “the pride of life”). However, if we see ourselves as God sees us, we come not only to realize what we are not, but to the realization of Who God is. It is in such a place that we apprehend the “fear” (also translated as the “reverence”) of the Lord.

The psalmist says that it is upon such people that the Lord’s compassion rests. God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, as His “sympathetic consciousness” of our distress. The cross of Jesus is His sole and solitary plan to alleviate that distress. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s guarantee. – Luther

Tagged brevity of life, compassion, faith, God, jesus, life's brevity, love, the book of Psalms