Easter reflections

My thoughts this Easter reverberate on this often overlooked cornerstone of the Christian faith: Love one another. Period. No qualifications.

If there is more to say on this subject it is only to love the people that it is hard to love. It is never commanded to love the small children; we love the small children without being commanded to, this is easy. (We are told to be more like them, however. This is harder to do.) We are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, to love our enemies, to love pervasively and unconditionally. This is hard.

We aren’t called to merely be tolerant of people or to accept people. We are called to go beyond that, to love them, to show our love to them. Period.

It is difficult to love through the purview of judgment or hatred or pride or condescension. That is why we are told to cast these things away. It is hard to love when one focuses on all the differences between us. In actuality, there is always more sameness among those of us in this human race; this should be our focus.

We are not told to love only those who look like us or act like us or believe in the same things that we do. We are not told to love only those who make good decisions or who treat us kindly.

Love one another. This is not always easy. We all struggle with this; if we achieve this ability to truly love unconditionally, we achieve perfection. This is not possible, but we should strive to love as we are commanded to.

LOVE:
a new command I give to you: love one another.
faith, hope and love. the greatest of these is love.
love never fails
there is no fear in love
love is patient
love is kind
love must be sincere
love your neighbor as yourself
if you love those who love you, what reward will you get?

Love and joy to you this Easter!