#ChooseLove

Romanos 13:10 (NIV) “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

 

How often have we heard someone say, “God is love?” I believe that those words have lost their value from over use. And still we seem to simply have no idea what it means to love? Between homophobia, lack of understanding, discrimination is so hurtful that I am sometimes led to think that we simply have not learnew what it means to love. Instead, we prefer to adhere to tired ideologies, full of faults. This route does not allow us to experience the true love that is only possible through of God.

 

I have had the experience of being so busy trying to please others, that I imagine that the lie that I lived was pleasing to God. In the midst of the process I didn’t love myself. I remember hearing the voice of Ru Paul, the drag queen that served as Prophet, when he said “if you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love someody else?”

I may not have the formula to solve this worlds lack of love. But I learned how to love myself when I finally understood that God loves me beyond my imagination. And that is the only thing that I can offer, you need God within your heart in order to love without limits. That you may be able to stop hurting others, but rather to offer strength, love, and blessings.

 

It is in the depth of ourselves that God grooms us to love in an extraordinary way. When we truly know God we begin to understand that there is no law that we are able to completely adhere to  without God, rather we can attempt to offer love in the midst of our failings. Love can achieve everything and without it (and God) nothing else looses importance.

 

When we are weak, when matterial possessions are not enough, when our actions are not enough to achieve, love triumphs. Love allows reconciliation, without love it is impossible!

 

There is nothing you can do for God to love you more or less. We attempt to please God by our actions.  The only action we can take that can strengthen us is love. Love, not because you must, but rather because you choose to. Because God loved us first.  Are you ready to gift that kind of love? There is no law, only grace to choose a path and one God patient enough to wait and freely gift us the instrument called love!  #ChooseLove

 

Repeat these lyrics as prayer:

“Cover me, surround me with your love. Take me, close to you is where I long to be. And in waiting, I will be strengthened. And I will rise like an eagle in the strength of your love.” – Ingrid Rosario, Por El Poder de tu Amor

 

The Rev. Edwin Perez, Jr. is ordained through the Apostolic Fellowship International Ministries. His is a social justice ministry within the Latinx & LGBTQ communities of New Haven, CT. He is both a deacon and a member of United Church on the Green, UCC. He has not always lived comfortably in his truth of being both homosexual and Christian.  In his youth, Edwin fought to accept his sexual identity. It was in moving away from the many voices that attempted to dictate how he should think and feel that he heard the voice of God. God loves Edwin just as he is. God also loves you!