A scribe asked Jesus how to get eternal life. Jesus turned the question around, and asked the scribe what he thought. The scribe responded: "Love God with all you've got. Love people like you love yourself." And Jesus told him that he was correct.
When gets to the bottom line of Christianity, it is all about love.
Paul writes that a person could be the most accurate prophet in history, speak/pray/sing in tongues, have the Bible memorized, and believe that Mt. Rushmore would be transported to Disney World — and it was, but if all that is not motivated by love, it would be worthless.
And if these things need to be motivated by love, what does that say about any practice that people who follow Jesus do? All spiritual practices should be motivated by love: prayer, reading the Bible, evangelism, going to church, and giving to support any work.
Spiritual practices should only be an expression of love, but they should also be an arena for growing in love.
We should connect with our Father, who is love, who washes us in love, who will tweak our spiritual DNA, so we will think, speak, and act more with love.
We should read the Bible, so our Father's mind-set, attitudes and values become our mind-set, attitudes and values.
We should be involved in Christian community, because God did not design us to be alone. God did not design us to be transformed by interaction with him alone. We are also transformed by travelling with others on the same, but also different, journey.
He gave us the metaphor of his people being a body to illustrate how people are different, but how each one contributes to the health, well-being, and growth of the whole body. Together, we all benefit form the other parts. God joins people together to further increase love — among his people, and from his people to the world.
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