By Pastor Tim Bever
First United Methodist Church Pratt
Special to the Tribune

I can be pretty selfish sometimes and try to make the whole world about me. Do you ever do that? Most of us probably do at some point. And sometimes I do that when I think about how much God loves ME! See I know that I am a blessed child of God and that God loves me more than I can understand. What I forget is, that God loves everyone else that much too. That’s EVERYONE else. All of us.

This gets tough for me. I can get behind the whole love God and love your neighbor thing. God loves me and my neighbors mostly like me so that’s pretty simple. But then Jesus had to go and say in Luke 6:27 that we must also love our enemies and pray for those who are mean to us. Seriously! I don’t want to do that! And then, as if that’s not enough, just 10 verses later Jesus says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

Ok, this all makes sense, even if I don’t like it. In order to really love God and God’s creation, whether that is my neighbor or my enemy, I guess we can’t be judging them, and we have to forgive them. Even when it is extremely difficult.

So, there we have it. God loves us and calls us to love others in the same way. We may fail but we have to try and if we fail we will ask God’s forgiveness, show some of our own, and try to love again. This week please know that you are loved and show that love to others. Imagine how awesome the Pratt mission field could be if we all were able to know and do that.

(I feel I would be remiss if I don’t point out one thing here. You need to know, and if you need to pass this on to someone else, please show the love and do that. Being called to love one another, including those who hurt us, does NOT mean you have to stay in an abusive relationship. Moving away from abusive relationships, whether emotional, physical, sexual, or spiritual, will actually help to answer this call to love others. It is near impossible for a person to follow these commandments if they are being abused. Staying in this situation is not what this scripture is about and if you need help with this please feel free to contact me.)

Rev. Tim Bever – Pratt United Methodist Church.