Wildfire Season

The news of recent days has contained reports about massive fires burning in the West. Each year during wildfire season I think about what I would take with me if I ever had to suddenly evacuate my home because of pending disaster.  The short list is:

• People
• Pets
• Laptop
• Bible
• Pictures

Images like this burning house are a reminder of how suddenly life can change and how fragile the "stuff" we accumulate in our life can be.  Fire is all consuming!

I have spent the last couple of years helping my aging mother downsize.  It was a humbling experience as my brother and I worked to gracefully dispose of her treasured possessions.  

The Lord urges us to view life from an eternal perspective.  

Our time in this life is temporary.  The stuff we accumulate in this life can be lost in a moment.  The Lord calls us to be mindful and focused on those things that endure.  His Word tells us that created things can be shaken and removed, but the things of His Kingdom remain.  The way of the Kingdom is love.

We love because God first loved us.  1 JOHN 4:19

Mission, Jesus style calls us to sincere love from the heart 

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.  For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.  For,

  "All men are like grass,

    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;

  the grass withers and the flowers fall,

    but the word of the Lord stands forever."  1 Peter 1:22-25

Paul's great chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, is often read during marriage ceremonies.  It tells us that "love never fails."  It calls our attention to the eternal, enduring matters of life and instructs us that we can do all kinds of good things, but when they are not done with sincere love from the heart, they do not endure. 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-3

As the people of God spread HIS enduring love and grace to others around them, there is the potential for the Word of the Lord to spread rapidly.  

Let there be an outpouring of love today...

Love each one that God puts in front of you!