Loving God
John makes it all sound so easy. To love God, obey His commandments. Jesus was the only one who could obey and fulfill the commandments.
When we look down the list of the commandments, we find we really cannot get past the first commandment: love the Lord your God and have no false images. That means keeping God first in your life, in everything. If we are honest with ourselves, we must say we really do not keep God first. And knowing we are human we do not have the ability to keep God first. There are obligations and demands placed on us that take our attention away from God. Stress at work, a runny nose child, an upset spouse, and suddenly God is not first. We need to focus and address what is in front of us now. Still, we can come back to God a little later. We might thank Him for helping us in that situation or we may need to ask for forgiveness for overreacting.
The greatest challenge is that we want to say we love God, but then do our actions really prove that we do. John said if you hate your brother you are convicted of being a liar. You cannot hate your neighbor and say you love God. We need to learn to forgive and let go.
It is a good thing to practice forgiveness. Just saying the words ‘I forgive’ might be all you do even if do not have forgiveness in your heart. But I find as people practice saying those words, they do begin to mean something. You look deeper in your heart, and you find you may have to forgive yourself before you can forgive someone else. Start today. Who do you need to forgive? Just say “I forgive you’ and then say it every day until you mean it.
May the Lord bless you in the name of the Father and if the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen