Jesus was known to upset an applecart or two in his day. In his most famous sermon, he went through a whole list of cultural norms and modified them. One in particular was love. It is natural for us to love our friends and hate our enemies. But God wants us to extend our boundaries of love to include those “outside” our usual circle of friends.
Jesus told his listeners: If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that (Matthew 5:46-47, The Message).
Saturday night at New Life Church’s Fall Festival, we opened our church doors for hundreds of people we’d never met before. And you were the church! I watched you extend your boundaries of love. You showed up early. You loved children and met parents. You smiled and laughed a lot. You gave away lots of candy. And you stayed late to clean up.
We all had fun with our church friends, but I know you were there because of our guests. Thank you for being the church…and thank you for being a GREAT church!
