Friday, August 7, 2020
Love
“The religion of Jesus makes the love-ethic central.” page 79
In writing about love, Howard Thurman focuses on the true work of love: loving one’s enemy. For love to happen, forgiveness is necessary for three reasons.
First, God forgives us, again and again and again, for what we do intentionally as well as our unintentional actions.
Second, no action that we take, no matter how evil, represents the full intention of the person who commits that act.
Third, every act of evil will be punished. Thurman points out, “Life is it’s own restraint.”
We need to recognize fear, deception and hatred for what they are. Once we do that, we can reject them, and seek to destroy any power they have in our lives. Then we will see that the contradictions in our lives–like the tragedy of the poor getting poorer while the rich get richer–will not last.
Love is not an ideal. Love is an action, an action that those of us who follow Jesus should practice on a daily basis. Pray for what Martin Luther King, Jr. described as the strength to love.
This week’s devotional reflections have been adapted from the book, Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. Beacon, Boston. 1976.
Love
“The religion of Jesus makes the love-ethic central.” page 79
In writing about love, Howard Thurman focuses on the true work of love: loving one’s enemy. For love to happen, forgiveness is necessary for three reasons.
First, God forgives us, again and again and again, for what we do intentionally as well as our unintentional actions.
Second, no action that we take, no matter how evil, represents the full intention of the person who commits that act.
Third, every act of evil will be punished. Thurman points out, “Life is it’s own restraint.”
We need to recognize fear, deception and hatred for what they are. Once we do that, we can reject them, and seek to destroy any power they have in our lives. Then we will see that the contradictions in our lives–like the tragedy of the poor getting poorer while the rich get richer–will not last.
Love is not an ideal. Love is an action, an action that those of us who follow Jesus should practice on a daily basis. Pray for what Martin Luther King, Jr. described as the strength to love.
This week’s devotional reflections have been adapted from the book, Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. Beacon, Boston. 1976.
