Love is greater

Reflection after Memorial Day

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 1 John 3:16

The driving force for all followers of Jesus must be love. Love God and love others are the two greatest commandments. We cannot show grace without love. We cannot show mercy without love. We cannot strive for justice without love.

King Solomon wrote that work, pleasure, wisdom, wealth, foolishness, power, sacrifice, and plenty are all vanity and without substance. Humans were born of dust and shall return to it, while the spirit of those who love God returns to him. Only a healthy fear of God (loving God) and keeping his commandments (love others) make the things people do significant.

On Memorial Day, Americans take time to remember the ultimate sacrifice of fighting men and women whose lives were cut short by war. This is appropriate and necessary. If we forget those who fought to ensure our freedoms, particularly our freedoms to think, speak, and worship, we risk losing those freedoms to either totalitarianism or anarchy. Those freedoms, foundational to the United States, are essential to understanding the reasons many young women and men choose to serve the US, even at the risk of their lives. They follow in the path of the Founders who pledged their lives and honor as they signed the Declaration of Independence.

More broadly, it benefits the US when Christians act in accordance with the will of God by the pattern of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. Loving God and loving others empower us to do justly and to love mercy while walking humbly as we go. Love is greater than patriotism. Grace is more than good works. Mercy is beyond the limits of human ideas of justice. Honor those who gave all so that we might practice love, grace, and mercy while we walk this earth.