Sometimes you just can't think of a good title

First of all, thanks to Sarah and Spenser for a fun visit Tuesday night. It's always good to hang out and play SkipBo, which I won hands down.

Next, I'm convinced Benji Fowler can make anything in life into a spiritual message. Even Jenga.

The scripture reference tonight was Colossians 3:12,13:

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

I don't know about you but I think this passage is about as plain as it gets. There's really no gray area. As Benji said, there are no prerequisites to forgiveness. It is given, not earned. But here is how it relates to the topic of the night.

The virtues listed above are desired in our friends. We look for these, and other things, in the people we choose to be around. The "perfect friend" would show these characteristics pretty much all the time. But we find these only in Christ. Likewise, we can only exhibit these things if we are found in Christ. And just as important as finding these in others is putting them on ourselves for the sake of others. So, it kinda comes down to what kind of friend we are to others, and are we the kind of friend we look for.

I treasure my friends. I feel as though no one has ever been blessed with good, Christian friends like I have. But, wonderful as they are, they don't always look like the kind of person Paul describes here. I'm sure I rarely look that way to them at all. But friends are friends. And true friends are always friends. I know the people who are truthful with me, who I can count on to be there, to lift me up and bear my burdens. They are the ones who share my love for God.

And so it comes down to love. Paul goes on to write, in the next verse:

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Love is the foundation. Love binds all these other virtues together, love binds hearts together. There is no substitute for it, there is nothing that can compensate for its absence, and there is nothing that can motivate us like love.

I think what Paul was trying to get this church to understand is that it is up to those of us who have accepted God's love to join together and be an earthly picture of that love. "Birds of a feather" and stuff. We have to start "flocking together" and reaching out to each other. We have to start loving each other, keeping each other close, reeling each other back in when we drift. Because that's what we do. We support, we encourage, we understand, we comfort, we bear. We walk, crawl, tip-toe, run, jump, hop, or skip through the fire with each other so that we can stand with each other on the other side.

We love. Because we are loved.

Happy Thursday.