Faith Family,

It’s Tuesday, the passion week of Jesus.  He was traveling back and forth from Jerusalem to Bethany just under 2 miles each way.  Jesus was preparing the world’s greatest stage.  It was almost time for history’s greatest act.  Boldness.  Confrontation. Escalation.  One group after another fired their best shots at Jesus.  The chief priests and the elders.  The Pharisees.  The Sadducees.  And the Pharisees again.

It was on Tuesday, there in Jerusalem, there under the weight of all that was before Him, there Jesus recounted the sweetness of the great commandment, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, (Matthew 22:37).

Psalm 19 tells us that the commandment of the Lord is:  More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb, (Psalm 19:10).

As I write, I am perched on my little back deck.  Fire burning in the little fire pit confronting the cool of the morning.  A squirrel or two enjoying the cast-offs from the bird feeder on the ground.  They know better than to jump up on the feeder.  It is a battery-operated merry-go-round that will take squirrels on the ride of their lives.  The gentle cooing of a pair of doves is somehow calming.  The occasional hummingbird can be felt as his wings buzz by.  A crow pierces the quiet of the morning with his offensive call.  The yellow finches splash color on the limbs of the budding trees.  And across the street I can hear the sweet voice of the neighbor’s little girl as she enjoys God’s creation with her mother.

I confess, looking at the canvas of God, His creation, I find it easy to love Him, to enjoy Him in the still of the morning.  If I’m flat on my back staring at the ceiling of a hospital room, listening to a ventilator, is it still easy to love God? 

When He calls us to places that we may not want to go to do things that we may not want to do, the call to love Him completely remains.  How do we love our God with everything today?  We love because He first loved us, (1 John 4:19).  Be reminded of God’s love for you.  Meditate on what Jesus did for you.  As you taste again, for the first time, His love for you, choose to love Him back.  Ask Him to help you love Him back.