LIVING LIMITLESS LOVE
There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds. Matt. 5:48, N.E.B.
Ours is a world of limits. Speed limits, social limits, limits imposed by stress or handicaps; the list can become annoyingly, if not painfully long. "Do I have to be home at midnight?!" implores your teenage daughter. "Why can't I just win a sweepstakes, or something?!" wishes the dog-tired executive facing the monthly stack of bills that outbalance his income. "If only I were beautiful, like Marilyn Monroe." "If I were better with my hands, I could fix it myself."
We all continually face our own limitations and those imposed on us by society and circumstances. "Oh, to be free!" we sometimes sigh. Teenagers long to become adults. Adults long for retirement. The aged long for their youth. Christians long for the Second Coming. But is that the best for which we can hope? Are our limitations immune from the gospel assurance of freedom and abundant life?
Of course, many limitations are those protections we might not choose for ourselves. Many are not. However, the irony of our lives is that most of us do not use more than 2 percent of our potential! And this may indeed hold the key to our frustrations. Perhaps our surest happiness and our greatest productivity lie in those areas that we pass by in pursuit of our desired goals. This is not to say that our chosen goals are necessarily wrong. Is it possible, though, that we have allowed the ideals we hold to rob us of the very real and tangible accomplishments?
I like today's text because it implies an open window in our world of many closed doors. Rather than an impossible command, I see promise and potential. The central issue is not obedience but sonship, as noted in verse 45 of the same chapter. Sons and daughters have the privilege of upholding and extending their father's reputation. And this is our heavenly Father's coronation: limitless love!
Let us make a conscious effort to allow God to develop in us the glorious potential of living limitless love!
There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds. Matt. 5:48, N.E.B.
Ours is a world of limits. Speed limits, social limits, limits imposed by stress or handicaps; the list can become annoyingly, if not painfully long. "Do I have to be home at midnight?!" implores your teenage daughter. "Why can't I just win a sweepstakes, or something?!" wishes the dog-tired executive facing the monthly stack of bills that outbalance his income. "If only I were beautiful, like Marilyn Monroe." "If I were better with my hands, I could fix it myself."
We all continually face our own limitations and those imposed on us by society and circumstances. "Oh, to be free!" we sometimes sigh. Teenagers long to become adults. Adults long for retirement. The aged long for their youth. Christians long for the Second Coming. But is that the best for which we can hope? Are our limitations immune from the gospel assurance of freedom and abundant life?
Of course, many limitations are those protections we might not choose for ourselves. Many are not. However, the irony of our lives is that most of us do not use more than 2 percent of our potential! And this may indeed hold the key to our frustrations. Perhaps our surest happiness and our greatest productivity lie in those areas that we pass by in pursuit of our desired goals. This is not to say that our chosen goals are necessarily wrong. Is it possible, though, that we have allowed the ideals we hold to rob us of the very real and tangible accomplishments?
I like today's text because it implies an open window in our world of many closed doors. Rather than an impossible command, I see promise and potential. The central issue is not obedience but sonship, as noted in verse 45 of the same chapter. Sons and daughters have the privilege of upholding and extending their father's reputation. And this is our heavenly Father's coronation: limitless love!
Let us make a conscious effort to allow God to develop in us the glorious potential of living limitless love!
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