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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.
John 3:16
Whenever I see the word 'perish', I think of a state somewhere between life and death; a sort of undead state. Remember where Jesus warns his disciples, those who live by the sword will perish by the sword? Perish here means the act of using the sword erodes the moral person; we become driven by something which is not of God and so might as well be dead. To perish is to give up on life.
To long for God's Kingdom is to choose life. It is to choose to enter into dialogue with God, to respond to God's questions, to embrace the pain of being alive. It is ultimately, the most difficult thing of all, to learn to love.
God's example to us is in God's love for the world. The God we saw challenging the world in Isaiah is the God we find loving the world and suffering for the world.
Somehow the churches are called to join in on this enterprise of love. This means to share in God's pain as well as God's love. We learn to do this and experience unity through our divisions; the ways in which we are challenged to love one another despite our differences.
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