⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8, NRSVue)

I want to turn from exhaustion to hope.

That is the way of love.

Love incarnate must be the badge that the Christian community wears, the sign not only of who they are but of who their God is.

Easy to write, hard to live out. We get so many ugly stories of church abuse. We see the ugly power struggles in the church. Factions. Gossip.

That doesn’t mean we abandon the Church, the Body of Christ. It calls me to keep insisting on love. The rule of love is not optional. It is the very essence of what we are about. God set the example… follow it.

This is the force that has changed the world, and could still change the world if only the followers of Jesus would really come on board with it.

And this:

Once you learn to give yourself to others as God gave himself to us, there is nothing to be afraid of any more, just a completed circle of love.

I don’t need to live is exhaustion. Quite frankly, this world can’t afford for followers of Christ to live in exhaustion. The enemy gets the advantage when exhaustion causes me to “sit it out.”

The greater hope is in living out love. Sacrificial love. God started all this in Christ. It is perfected when we walk in love as his followers.

Let us walk this way.

 All italicized quotes from: Wright, T. (2011). Early Christian Letters for Everyone: James, Peter, John and Judah. SPCK; Westminster John Knox Press.