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The gospel is the story of love, God’s love for people, as followers of Christ our lives and ministries must reflect this love, we must let God’s love flow out of us into the lives of the people around us. There are general ways we can love people and yet there are specific ways unique to us as individuals that God wants His love to flow out of our lives to the world around us.

Every true ministry or service must be a reflection of God’s love, we serve because we love, no matter the organizations we build or the structures we set up if it is all about us and not God’s love to humanity then we have failed.

It is time to let the love of God be the dominant passion in our heart, His love is the answer to all the hate, bigotry, distrust and anger that is flowing like a river of death in our world today, this morning as I prayed in my hotel room in Lisbon, I began to see how we have slipped out of God’s love into a self centred, selfish motive for even the service we render in the name of Christ.

We ‘preach’ at people from afar, we don’t want to get close and personal because we fear we may be taken advantage of or hurt, these are real possibilities but Jesus loved and told us to love even those that will hate us and pray for those that seek to abuse us, sometimes we are so consumed with our ‘ministries’ that we see people as just tools to reach our set goals or satisfy our desire for ‘success’ but this Jesus did not do, the people were the reason why he came. We discriminate, segregate and determine who has access to us based on their social standing, affluence or influence and how much they can contribute to us in one way or the other, we call this ‘positioning’ . This is not the way of Jesus.

Can we be a people of love and not be concerned about people? Seeking the best for them, willing to inconvenience ourselves for the good and betterment of another? Can we shut our doors, hearts and purses to those that have need of them and still have our hearts open to God? I hear Jesus saying ‘if you have done these to the least of my brethren you have done it to me’

I had cause to pray this morning asking for His mercy and help to live this life of love as He enables me to in His wisdom, will you pray also?