Love Earnestly

Scotty Smith post:  A Prayer about Loving Well ‘Cause Life Is Short

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. 1 Pet. 4:7–10

Dear Jesus, may Peter’s words sink and settle deep into my heart today—“the end of all things is at hand.” If I really believed this, if I really believed your return could happen within my lifetime—or that my life might end before I see another Christmas, how could it not make a huge difference in how I love?

Whenever I attend a funeral, I always go away with a renewed sense of my mortality and the fragility of life, at least for a few days. I hug loved ones a little tighter and linger a little longer in conversations. I make a few overdue calls to friends. But then it’s “back to normal,” and the same old harried pace takes over and the same old broken patterns in relationships resume. None of us loves well in cruise control. Without the gospel, we have no love, and without love, we are nothing.

Rather than love loving earnestly, we get irritated easily. Rather than covering one another’s sins, we gossip about one another’s sins. Rather than welcoming one another without grumbling, we guard our own space with complaining. Rather than using the gifts you’ve given us to serve others, we hoard our gifts to satisfy ourselves. Rather than being generous stewards of your grace, we live as selfish misers of your mercy. Yet “the end of all things is near.” God, have mercy on me, the sinner.

Jesus, I don’t want to love by guilt, but by grace. I don’t want to love by fear, but by faith. I don’t want to love with a heart of manipulation, but with a heart of ministry. I don’t want to love with a view to another funeral, but with a view of your second coming. I don’t want to love to get anything from people, but because I’ve received everything I need in you. I don’t want to love others as others love me, but as you love me.

You’re the only one who loves really deeply and it’s us that you deeply love. You’ve haven’t just covered a multitude of our sins, but all of them—taking the judgment we deserve on the cross. You always offer us hospitality without grumbling. You’re always serving us, and giving us more and more grace. We are humbled. We are convicted. We are grateful.

Live in us and love through us today, Lord Jesus, whether you return in the next fifteen minutes or fifteen hundred years from now. So very Amen we pray in your kind and faithful name.