Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Matt 22:38-40 (NLT)
The Narrow Way – Part 3
Love is the way – we were born to walk a road paved with it. Not division, separateness, loneliness ego, abuse, me first, selfishness… there are many roads that long for our feet to walk its back; they call to us with words like “easy, carefree, you first…” These roads are wide and smooth, flat and well-tread. Prov 16:25 says “There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.”
We must choose love.
The narrow road of love is a strait (difficult passage) and challenging way. I can hear some of you saying “Narrow you say? Isn’t love ALL inclusive, for EVERYONE? Isn’t that wide and expansive?”
It’s usually the hard roads, winding ways, steep tracks, laden with rocks and branches, obstacles and fears, the roads that leave us breathless almost always lead us to places that take our breath away. The greatest views are found at the end of the hardest treks; our endurance and fitness is built not on smooth and easy streets, but on the rough terrain of hard work, narrow and unpredictable roads.
It’s a difficult thing to walk against your pride and hurt; it's challenging to put others first, it's just plain hard to put your feelings aside and do what is right for others – extend a hand, look into the eyes of another human being, see their heart and pain, to understand. Love is not easy, but the way of love leads to beautiful views and a strengthened heart; an expansive worldview and wide embraces.
In all the arguments and pointed fingers I see and hear about; all the issues large and small within our homes, communities, countries and the world, our calling as people of faith is to LOVE, not ‘take a stand’ for behaviour. And while we hold behaviour as a measure of worth, I imagine Jesus calling out across the ages “LOVE… the greatest of these is love”.
He summed up all the laws, all the check boxes, all the rights and wrongs into two things – love God & love each-other.
Leave easy street behind and follow Jesus down the narrow road… the road of love, beauty and hope.
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