The God who is love calls us to walk in love. Are we called to walk in love because we now have the ability to love? Where does our love come from? Left to ourselves, we do not love. However, in spite of our natural lack of love we are met by Jesus in the Spirit and that encounter changes everything.

In the Presence of Jesus, we are aware that we have failed to love God and others. Indeed, we are those who are always hostile to God wanting nothing to do with him. Nevertheless, as we meet Jesus, we are aware that he is the one who loved us and gave himself for us. And in that same encounter, the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Spirit freely given. So we now know that we are deeply loved and called to walk in love as the Spirit of love works the love of God within us.

We must continually remind ourselves that God does not love us because we love. Rather, we love because he loves us. For the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me continually loves me and goes on giving himself to me. I no longer live, but he lives in me to live his own life of love in and through me. And so, in him and with him and through him we are enabled to walk in love.