1 John 4:7-9
“Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him.”
To all the dads at Lifespring–Happy Father’s Day! Being a dad can feel like a roller coaster at times. It’s challenging, beautiful, transformative, exciting, and tiring, all at the same time. But through all the ups and downs of being a parent, we grow, we learn, and we are changed for the better. So keep on keeping on, dads–you’re doing a great job!
As I was thinking about a message for Father’s Day last week, the theme that kept coming to mind over and over again was God’s love. This is a message so old and unoriginal that I was a bit hesitant to speak on the topic. But perhaps, because it is so fundamental and basic for our faith, we need to talk about it more often.
The theme of God’s love came to mind for me in relation to the different things that Lifespring has been doing over the past few years. We sponsored water wells, supported the food bank in Willowdale, and visited Turkey to explore refugee sponsorship, among other things. At times, we can get so caught up in the hustle of these activities, that we can lose sight of why we are doing them in the first place.
In the end, we did not sponsor water wells or serve food at 415 Willowdale because we were trying to do a good deed. We didn’t do it because we saw a need, and thought that we could fill it. Don’t get me wrong, I hope that in the work we do as a church, we do meet needs, and we do reach out with good deeds. But simply meeting needs or doing deeds are not the primary motivation for these activities. We do them out of an overflow of God’s love for us. We love others because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). In every cup of water that is poured, or slice of pizza we serve, we hope that in some way, the love of God is communicated and Christ becomes known through it.
But here is the kicker. We’re only able to communicate God’s love through our actions if the love of God is first in us. The love that we show to others is an overflow of the love that God has shown to us. It’s almost like we’re mirrors for God’s love. The love that we show to others doesn’t originate from us. It comes from us reflecting God’s love to others. God’s love meets us where we are, then we reflect that to those around us. This is certainly true for dads–the love that we show our children is a reflection of God’s love for us.
What this means is that the only way we can really show genuine love and care for others is if we’ve received that same genuine love and care from God. There is really no replacement for that in our journey with God. We need to know the love of God deep within our hearts.
So what does it take to receive that kind of love from God? All it takes is a little openness to God. When we say to God, “I’m open to you God, I open my heart to you,” God does amazing things.
Lifespring, let’s continue to live with hearts open to God. Let’s renew our commitment to open our hearts to God. And as we receive that love, may we be able to show that same love toward others, not in words or speech but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).