One of my favorite verses of scripture is from the epistle for yesterday. I John 3:1, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God: and so we are.”

Next Sunday we will hear what we children of God are to do with the love we have received. I John 3:18, “Little children, let us love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

In an era when we hear reports of self – serving, hateful, divisive and denigrating talk about one another, and from what I read on social media, the people are not immune from this either, we need to “hear, mark, learn and inwardly digest” our Lord’s word.

British poet and hymn writer Brian Wren wrote a poem which begins, “Lord God, your love has called us here as we, by love, for love were made.”  The final verse urges us;

Lord God, in Christ you set us free

Your life to live, your joy to share.

Give us your Spirit’s liberty

To turn from guilt and dull despair

And offer all that faith can do

While love is making all things new.

Wren’s poem is an echo of Martin Luther:

A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none.

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.