“Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet each other with a sacred kiss. All of God’s people here send you their greetings. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
2 Corinthians 13:11-14 NLT
Scriptures about God’s love and peace can be found throughout the Bible. Take, for example, Genesis 1. We read the creation account and towards the end we find this, “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. … ”” (Genesis 1:26a). What motivated God to create human beings? There was, and is, only one possible explanation: His love. A baby is born today, ready to be lavished with the love of its parents. The waiting is over, the birth happens, and then we see the wonderful picture, repeated many times, of a little scrap of humanity being cradled in his or her mother’s arms, love gleaming in mum’s face through the drying tears following the pain of birth. Didn’t God go through the same loving experience when He birthed Adam and Eve? Wasn’t His love gleaming through the creation story? And then we find the same God, heartbroken, but reaching out over the millennia, to His wayward children, corrupted by sin, rebellion, and denying their very Father. However, God had a plan to be executed through His Son, Jesus. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. The once and forever act of love remains hanging in the air as an invitation to God’s creation, regardless of generation, geography, or gender.
Paul wrote about the “God of love” being with the Corinthians, and so He will be as well with us today. Paul also wrote that much-quoted passage in 1 Corinthians about love and its fundamental importance in human life. We are made in God’s image, and His love is a fundamental, probably even the most important, part of His character. Everything that we do, as it is with God, must be founded on love. Paul finished his second letter with the blessing “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”. Grace, love and fellowship. Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit. There is something in this verse that grabs our attention, and intuitively, we look upwards to the Source of love.
There is peace to be found in God, and in these war-torn days, with evil and depraved men with fingers hovering over nuclear buttons, with misery consequently tearing at the hearts of God’s creation, peace can be found. But where is it? There is only one place, and that is in Jesus. John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world”. “There is a way back to God from the dark paths of sin”, as the old chorus says. God will never turn anyone away from His presence as long as they seek Him with all their hearts.
Father God. Thank You for Your plan for the salvation of mankind. We look to Jesus and find in Him the love that ripples down from above into our hearts, ready to be shared with those around us. Thank You Lord! Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 