People: because He loves us

Relationships. God created us for them and in them. We are created through the relationship of our parents. We are created to be in relationships with other people, with the earth (shelter and food) and with animals (food and clothes). But more than anything we are created to be in relationship with Christ. Purpose. From being in a relationship with Him we learn how to be in relationship with other people, Christian or not. We love because He first loved us. He showed us what love is, excuse me, shows us what love is. Read the Gospel. It is FULL of love. Look for it, it will bring you to tears, or at least a welling up of joy within (for the less sentimental among us).

Relationships. That is the basis of Jesus' ministry. Not was, not will be, is. The story of Creation hints at God's design of relationships. He created Adam to be in relationship with Himself, and it was good. He created Adam also to be in relationship with a suitable mate, and it was good. Notice how this mirrors the greatest two commandments quoted  by Jesus in the Gospels :Love the Lord your God above all else, and love your neighbor as yourself. God created Adam alone at first maybe that he might learn to love the Lord his God above all else. Then a suitable mate was made for him (by GOD), that he may love his neighbor as himself. God created this mate, this friend, out of His love for Adam. This infers that God created other people for us to interact with, to live with, to talk with, because He loves us. God created us to be in community, and He created for us a community. Because He loves us.

Being around other people, I sometimes forget this. Forget that God created every person, every relationship, every circumstance. And His every has a purpose. Naïve of me to forget, I know. I get caught up in the people, in the expectations of relationships apart from God that I forget: relationships are built by God and for Him even if they exclude Him.  My challenge for myself as I am around family and friends of the past, believers and non, is to remember. As I engage in relationships that have spanned my life pre-, post- and concurrent with Christ, to remember. To remember Him, to remember the purpose of relationships, to remember my purpose in Him. Being around people that do not know Him, it is hard to remember that purpose. But the purpose is there nonetheless. These people, these dear friends that I can laugh and cry and recall with, are in my life for a reason. I get to share life with them because Christ loves me. Praise Him. He has loved me enough to bless me with this family and these friends. And I am oh so thankful, though sometimes that is hard for me to see. However, hard is no excuse. Hard is no alibi. Hard is merely a perception, a perception of an untrue reality. The true reality is that God loves, God loves me, God loves them and thus we are in each others' lives for purpose and reason. Now to seek that purpose, that reason, and above all, seek to love. "Love always protects, always hopes, always perseveres." 

Love has no boundaries, has no conditions, has no expectations. It just does, it listens and it responds regardless. People are in our lives because God loves, we get to love these people because God loves. Every relationship is an opportunity to love God and be loved by God regardless of the other person's perception (or lack thereof) of Him.

1 John 4:7-14

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God sent His only begotten Son into that world that we may love through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loves us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at anytime; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."