Daily Lesson for May 22, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from 1 John chapter 4 verses 7 and 8, 12 and 13, and 16:

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love . . . 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit . . .16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

A person struggles with whether or not they have a relationship with God. They doubt that they belong to God. They think they are separated from God.

I say, “Do you love?  Do you love anyone at all? A spouse or a child or friend or a puppy? Do you have even one little ounce of love in you?  Because if so, you have God in you.”

If we have love then we have God. We abide in God’s love and God’s love abides in us. For God is love. And no love exists apart from the abiding presence of God.

Augustine said, “Those things be good which are yet corrupted . . . For if they be deprived of all good, then they cease to be. So long therefore as they are, they are good, and whatsoever is is good.”

Love doesn’t have to be perfect in order to be good. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be present. It doesn’t have to forgive all things or hope all things. It may be struggling to forgive even something very petty. It may be struggling to hope even against hope. But if love is still alive, if it has endured all things, even with just feint breath, then love is alive; and if it is alive then it is good; and if it is good then it is from God. It is from God alive and loving inside of us.

Do you love?  Do you love anything or anyone?  Do you love one tiny little thing in this world? Do you love even one single somebody?  Then love is inside you. And if love is inside of you, even one little ounce of love, then so is God.

And on that you can start to build the Temple.