Extending Love

While I am definitely missing our normal gatherings, I am also deeply encouraged by the ways you are responding and continuing to live as the church.

How can we extend love to one another and our neighbors during this difficult time? That’s something that many of us have been asking one another these past few weeks.  How do you show love and concern to people that you care deeply about and that you’re used to being with?  

We are created for relationship — relationship with the holy and righteous God and with those around us. In these recent days, that desire that we all have for relationships is being tested.  But we’re finding ways to be present at least in some form.  We can extend love by speaking encouraging words and by praying for one another.  I know many of you are doing this through emails, texts, phone calls, and virtual meetings.  We can extend the love of Christ by demonstrating that in tangible ways to the best of our ability and within the bounds of safe practices that presently constrain all of us. 

All of this is motivated by a desire to be present with one another.  It reminds us that we can not and will not really show love and receive it if there’s not some form of presence. Apart from some kind of presence, love becomes just an idea. And that’s just how God demonstrated His love to us. He became present in Jesus, who came and dwelt among us and who now is present with us by the Holy Spirit and through the written and inspired Words of Scripture. God continues to love us with His presence. May that be a source of comfort and courage to us.