Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Okay guys. This is a hard concept. For me, for you, for everyone. So strap in, it’s about to get real.

Are your words merely words? Or, does your life truly reflect them?

Ouch. If you really let is sink in, it should sting a little. I know for me, I can say a lot about helping the homeless, or loving my enemies, or seeking justice… but, when the rubber meets the road, I walk right past that homeless person, I gossip behind the back of my “enemy”, and I really do very little to actually work for justice.

So, where does that leave us, all of us who struggle to actually live out our words? Right smack in the middle of grace, THANKFULLY, because we are “dear children”. And like children, we mess up again and again. Still, we have a loving father who picks us up and dusts us off and helps us try again to love like he has loved us. And, it is out of this place of experiencing the overwhelming love of our father that we can in turn love like he has loved us.