Listen

All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.”

Romans 8:14-15

Think

Teaching someone the definition of a noun is easy. Since nouns are people, places, or things, examples are everywhere.

This isn’t true of abstract nouns. A concrete noun, like a chair, is easy to understand as a thing; however, how do we see a thing like truth? How do we understand a thing like love if we can’t hold it in our hands?

Paul defines love not as a thing but as a way of being. God’s Holy Spirit leads us all into living as God’s children. This identity marks us and makes us into what God intends us to be – examples of God’s love in action. We are not enslaved by an angry God who demands acts of allegiance; on the contrary, we are freed by the everlasting love of a merciful God who wants to give us exactly what we need to live lives filled with love. When we cry out to God for what we need, we will receive it – even if we can’t see it or hold it in our hands.

Sarah Boatwright

Pray

Spirit of wisdom, thank you for the lessons you’ve taught me. May my understanding of your love grow, and may I never get tired of learning how to love you in return. Amen.

Go

“O Holy Spirit, enter in, and in our hearts your work begin, and make our hearts your dwelling.

Sun of the soul, O Light divine, around and in us brightly shine, your strength in us upwelling.

In your radiance life from heaven now is given overflowing, gift of gifts beyond all knowing.”

from “O Holy Spirit, Enter In” by Michael Schirmer