PODCAST
Love From The Center
August 22nd, 2011
Exodus 23:1-9
An interchurch conference had been set up to consider ways to help young people embrace more positive pursuits. After the morning’s discussion, we had lunch downtown and then walked back to the venue. On the way, a lost-looking teenager with a shockingly short skirt ducked around a building. She looked like she’d been up all night at some drunken party.
I turned to share my disdain. But my companion’s forehead wrinkled with concern. “Now there’s a girl who could really use a hug!” he whispered.
We had seen the same girl. I had been intimidated by her appearance and the way her demeanor affected me. But my friend had taken this lost girl to heart.
“Love from the center of who you are,” Paul writes. “Don’t fake it” (Rom. 12:9, TM). My first reaction had fallen short of love. I had not remembered my own lost condition before God saved me, nor the alien in my midst.
