Belief.

The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved. The faith that one is loved by God.
-- thomas merton.

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I constantly fall prey to the lie that I have to earn love.

That it is something to be strived for, gathered up, and paid for with the price of good deeds and good living.

(that whole works thing).

But God continues to remind me (ironically, through the faithfulness of the very love I so often doubt) that His love for me is constant, fierce, and unconditional.

It is nothing that has to be or can be earned.

He just loves me - for what I was, who I am, and what I am becoming.

He loves me, too, for who I can be - in Christ.

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And this love of His is still shocking to me and oh-so-hard for me to grasp - this love that cannot be earned or discarded, this love that simply IS.

Because I am so unworthy of it - in all my selfishness and brokeness and weakness - and I always will be.

And yet, here it is - in all its glory and power and beauty - laid out at my feet, offered to me, consuming my life like a fire.

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And the most interesting part of all of this is that when I finally do come to a place where I BELIEVE it - a place where I reach out in faith and accept this promise of love that I have been given and trust that it is real - trust that I AM, in fact, LOVED by God -

it is then (and only then) that all those WORKS fall into place.

For it is only when I really and fully trust in the fact that I am loved,

that I am truly able to love.

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We love because He first loved us.

Remain in Me and I will remain in you.

Seek first His Kingdom, and the rest shall be added.

He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.

For in Him we live and move and have our being.

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When I separate myself from the belief that I am wholly and perfectly loved by God (thereby denying Him who He is and ceasing to love Him), I lose my ability to offer real love to others.

And Jesus says that those two things, loving God and loving our neighbor, are the two things that sum up all the law and the prophets.

Believe. Be loved. Love.

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So then, what I believe (not what I want to believe or what I tell people I believe, but what I REALLY truly believe way down at my deepest core) about who God is and what His love means is essential to everything else.

Believing that God is who He says He is - it's the most important thing.

It's what we need to seek first.

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Which tells me that I better be serious about His Word (which Jesus tells us sanctifies us through its truth).

It tells me that I better continue to work out this faith of mine with fear and trembling - first so that I may believe, and second, so that I may love.

Belief. Love.

It all comes down to that.

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Oh Lord, blessed Rabbi - help us overcome our unbelief!

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Mark 9. Acts 17. John 15. John 17. 1 John 4. Matthew 6. Matthew 22. Jeremiah 31. Psalm 119. Philippians 2.

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Blessings.