Love week2

 The LORD kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God had said it would. And Abraham named their son Isaac. Eight days after Isaac was born, Abraham circumcised him as God had commanded. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me.     Genesis 21.1-6

God’s giving love is signed and sealed in grace. In fact, the glory of Sarah’s life can be summed up in Genesis 21.1-2, ‘The Lord was gracious to Sarah. . .and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant.’ Here then is the odd, irrational schedule of God’s giving love. When Sarah is past the age of having children, when she is physically incapable of pregnancy, God acts in her life. God gives Sarah a son. Sarah, the old one, had once laughed at the notion of late-in-life motherhood, and so the name of her firstborn son, Isaac, is ‘Laughter.’ She found that God’s promises may sleep awhile, but they are never silent forever. 

Now at an age when other women gaze back across the years to the infancies of their grandchildren, Sarah holds her firstborn. She can see that God is love. She can see that God’s heart of love compels him to give. And she can understand what God has revealed to all humanity. The words grace and gracious are related, and grace in its best reduction means gift.

If we say ‘grace’ before a meal, we are thanking God for His gifts. If we say a ballerina has grace, we mean she has been given the gifts of poise, balance and interpretation. If we say that God is gracious, or full of grace, we mean that God gives gifts to His children, gifts not deserved, but given to enrich us and establish our knowledge of God’s giving love in the centre of our souls. At the moment of this insight, we are changed forever. 

So then how are we to view the purpose of God in our lives? God desires that our bodies be the emissaries of communicating His love. Our feet are to carry His message. Our hands are to break His living bread. Our minds are to hold His vision. Our hearts are to beat with His compassion. All of this is to be done in the name of love.