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We see it in many places – on church signs, billboards, tee shirts, and bumper stickers: “God loves you. No exceptions.” It’s a good message, and one which we desperately need to hear. It’s an important message; it’s important enough that God sent his son to deliver the message (I John 4:9). We announce it to the world, and that is very good. However, it is more than an announcement, and sometimes we fail to see, or to communicate, the rest of the message.
An illustration can help us understand the full message. Remember a time when you were dating someone. You had been dating for a while and your feelings had grown deeper. A time comes when you want to utter those three little words. With warmth, and perhaps a bit of trepidation, you say, “I love you.” Many of us are nervous the first time we speak of our love in a relationship. We’re nervous because we’re doing more than acknowledging our feelings. What we are actually saying is, “I love you. Do you love me, too? Will we have a relationship and share our lives with each other?
Friends, when God says, “I love you,” God is also asking us to love him as well, and to have a relationship and share our lives with him. It isn’t just a declaration; it’s also an invitation. Being loved is great, but a love relationship cannot be one-sided. We need to respond to God’s love by loving God. Our immediate response is, “Of course, I love God! Who wouldn’t?” But do we actually love God? Do our actions demonstrate the love of God in our lives?
Think of the things one does when one loves someone. Two people in love spend time together; they talk with each other. Sometimes they just gaze into each other’s eyes. They assist each other in meeting the needs of life. They look out for each other.
God does this in his relationship with us. Who can deny that God meets our needs? God showers us with gifts. In fact, everything we have was given to us by God. God seeks us, primarily by sending his son to spread the good news (John 3:16), but also by prompting us in a small voice or through the words of others. If we think that God has not been seeking us or trying to speak with us, then the problem is that we haven’t been paying attention. Sometimes in a relationship, a person fails to pay sufficient attention to the partner. In a human relationship, this can lead to a breakup, or in a marriage, to divorce. In our relationship with God, however, it leads to God trying again to build the relationship by continuing to seek us and to get our attention. The Hebrew prophets, particularly Hosea, often speak of God’s relentless attempts to have a relationship with us.
I think that we are all in a relationship with God. It may be a good relationship, or it may be a failing one. How do we improve the relationship? What does our love of God require of us? Or, thinking of it another way, what actions spring from our love of God? What shows that we love God?
Spending time with God is one part of the relationship. This takes effort, as we all have pressures on our lives and demands on our time. One of the collects in Morning Prayer addresses this problem: Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, p.100) This is an excellent morning prayer as it moves us in the direction of our God.
What shall we do during our days to demonstrate our love for God? We can spend 15 or 20 minutes a day saying Morning or Evening Prayer (Book of Common Prayer, pp. 74 ff). How about spending one or two hours a week in Bible study, alone or in a group, to learn more about God’s recorded words to his people? We can gather with our brothers and sisters for Sunday worship each week. We can’t love God without loving our brothers and sisters (I John 4:21) – we should pray each day for those in need. We can give 10% of our income to support the church and people who are less fortunate than we. We can spend time in volunteer activities assisting brothers and sisters in need. We can actively engage with scripture seeking to hear what God is saying. We can sit quietly and listen for God’s voice. We can thank God for the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the houses in which we live. We can speak words of encouragement to others and strive to build up others instead of tearing them down. We can tell others of the good news that Jesus came to save us, and that salvation is free and plentiful. We should serve as witnesses to God’s good work in our lives and in the world. We show our love for God by living godly lives.
These things are signs of our love for God. They have been recognized for many centuries as essential outcomes of love. The books of Moses, particularly Deuteronomy, the teachings of the prophets, the gospels, and the epistles discuss these as needful activities. If we fail in these areas, then we need to scrutinize our relationship with God and ask whether we are properly responding to the announcement of God’s love. All relationships entail obligations; a one-sided relationship isn’t actually a relationship at all – it’s exploitation.God wants to have a serious, mature, loving relationship with each of us, and that requires that we respond appropriately to God’s invitation. Jesus told the apostles, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Loving God flows into doing God’s will and following God’s directives. And, though it may seem odd, following God’s commandments will increase our love for God. God’s directives are not given to “keep us in line” but rather to help us grow and mature.
When you read, “God loves you. No exceptions,” understand the full message. Acknowledge it not only as an announcement but as an invitation. Respond to the invitation. Love God. Love your brothers and sisters, and friends and enemies, and act accordingly.
May God help us as we strive to show God’s love to the world.
When I was in graduate school I attended a chapel on campus. Not surprisingly, most of the congregation was students or faculty or staff of the university. Several of us students formed a ‘ministry’ group. We were concerned with service to Jesus and the community, and looked for ways to help people in our area. Since we were students we suffered from a lack of funds and this hampered our mission activities. We were able to do some things on our limited budget, such as organize a clothing drive for the poor. Other things we wanted to do required money. We had a few fund-raising activities but these met with limited success.
After about two years of struggling, our priest made a proposal. He told us that he had a discretionary fund through the diocese for use in meeting the needs of people he encountered. He worked part-time at the chapel and had another position which did not involve pastoral work. As a result, he didn’t receive the number of requests which fall on those in full-time pastoral situations. His proposal was that he hand the discretionary fund to us for use in our ministry and mission work. We were thrilled both with the prospect of having money available for projects and with being judged as responsible enough to manage the discretionary fund. The group managed and used the discretionary fund for about a year and a half. Our oversight ended when the chapel gained a full-time priest and we placed the discretionary fund under his control.
The time of administering the discretionary fund was valuable. It taught us to be responsible not only fiscally but also spiritually because we had to discern the best use of the limited funds. Taking to heart Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) we also used our time to raise additional money to place in the discretionary fund. The priest had made us stewards of the fund and we had to learn to think and act as stewards. We were representatives of Jesus in our community and we had to behave appropriately. The money obviously could not be used for a pizza party or to pay for our college textbooks; the money was not ours — it belonged to Jesus through the church. We were agents for Jesus and the church. We were stewards and we learned stewardship.
I was reminded of this bit of my personal history recently when my daily Bible reading was from Acts. Part of the reading was, “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” (Acts 4:32, ESV) Clearly none of us could have said that the discretionary fund was “his own” and that understanding led us to reasoned, loving use of the money for the furtherment of God’s kingdom. The early Christians could could easily have said, “This is mine, and for my use,” but they did not. They had a view that their possessions were to be used as needed to meet whatever needs were existed. They did not see their “personal property” as a source for their private use but rather as a fund for communal support.
This is very different from our usual way of thinking of possessions. In fact, the use of the word ‘possessions’ betrays our attitude: “This is mine! I earned it, and I have it.” It is mine to use as I please for whatever I want to do. Certainly that attitude is an accurate reflection of our laws. However, it is not a proper Christian attitude. As Christians we are taught (or we should be) that all “our possessions” are in fact God’s possessions and are only entrusted to us. In other words, we are stewards, and we are to use the possessions as representatives of God.
Paul talks about this attitude in the first epistle to Timothy: “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” (1 Timothy 6:6-8, ESV) Paul tells us that we bring nothing into the world with us when we are born, and we take nothing with us when die, so how should we say that something is “ours”? Whatever goods or wealth we have are given by God and are in our possession only temporarily. We are stewards, and we will have to give an accounting of our stewardship. The catechism teaches us that our duty is “to use our talents and possessions as ones who must answer for them to God” (Book of Common Prayer, p.848).
As I read the verses from Acts and remembered my experience with the discretionary fund, I began to wonder what my life would be like if I had the fullness of the attitude of stewardship in my life, if I treated “possessions” as items on loan from God for use in meeting needs wherever they arise. What if I made all fiscal decisions on a communal and Christian basis? What if all Christians did? What if we were of one mind that all that we have is for use in the expansion of God’s kingdom? That we are managers and not owners? What would the world be like? Perhaps it would be like the early church with new members joining every day, and people being healed of diseases, and the masses speaking of the love of Jesus and of the power of God.
I’m not sure exactly what the world would be like if we all had the attitude of the early church. But I would like to find out.
Theologuy 