Love the Lord your God 

rothers and Sisters in Christ; Jesus said, “Verily, I say unto you, I give you a new commandment, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all of your soul and all of your body AND Love one another as I have loved you.” Mt. 22; 37-39.

We are told in I Cor. 13; 4- 8, 13, “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy.  Love is not proud.  Love does not act in unkind ways, seeking its own will. Love rejoices not in evil

but in truth. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes for all things and endures all things.”

“And three things remain...faith, hope and love. And the greatest is love!”

If I may be so bold as to add to Paul’s list. Love does not and cannot force itself upon another. Love can not be bought nor sold, for it is not ours to buy or sell. It is a gift given freely from God to be passed on freely to others. Love does not expect anything in return. Love begets faith and hope for without love we as Christians have neither hope nor faith.  In John, 3:16 we are told “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This Brothers and Sisters is unconditional love! He loved us when He created us, knowing we would disobey Him, stray from Him and outright reject Him and yet He descends from heaven and becomes a human being like us to save us from ourselves. The only way we as humans would believe was for Him to become a human as we are. If He were to command His angels to save the world thru dreams and visions we would all have been terrified. As the Angel said to Mary....Be not afraid!  He had to come in a “form” that we would understand! He had to be in our likeness, as humans, for us to accept and believe in Him.

And yet we still do not believe, still reject Him, still choose our owns paths, our own ways letting the free will that he allows us to have and use to go our own way in this life, with our without Him.

You see my Brothers and Sisters, it does not matter to God what we are, White, Black, Hispanic, gay, straight, bi, or TS/TV. He LOVES us just the same. We are his children. Just as our earthly parents love us and only want what is best for us, so our Heavenly Father loves us and desires what is best for us. His love is unconditional!!!! We can and do stray from him and He gently nudges us back to Him if we listen to our hearts and souls and trust in Him and His love.

How many times have we heard or said “I love you but....?”, that is putting conditions on love.

God does not say that, He only says “I LOVE YOU!” He never says you have to be this, or have to think a certain way and then I will/can love you. How many times have we thought..” If I do this for the church or give this to the church then God will love me....more?” His love is infinite.

It does not matter whether you build a grand cathedral in his honor and glory or wash the windows and sweep the floors in a small backwoods church. He loves you just the same.

Remember, the great shall be made lowly and the lowly exalted.