1 John 4:13-21

1 John 4:13-21
Contemporary English Version (CEV)

  Let's say you're walking down the street today and someone comes up to you and asks you to summarize the entire teachings of the Bible.  You'd be stuck trying to think of how best to sum it all up, right?  You'd want to try and capture all the important teachings, and you likely would be concerned about leaving something important out.  It's hard, especially considering how esoteric some of the things in the Bible are.  It's hard for adults who have lived with the Bible their entire lives to grasp some of the concepts.
  At the heart of the story, however, it can be so simple.  I think we tend to complicate it somewhat just because we have a hard time grasping that it really is so simple -- God has loved us eternally and unconditionally, and when we rejected God to his face, he loved us anyway.  He loved us when we didn't deserve it, and he promised that such love would always be with us, into the depths of eternity.  That's the Gospel story, and if we as the church could figure out how to live that out each and every day rather than arguing about some of the things we argue about, I bet a lot of people would be very interested in learning more about God and his undying love.
  So who and how will you love today?