Where is the love we thought we would find? Are we too busy trying to be the one who corrects the ones loved? Has our correction become scolding? The Father corrects the ones loved by the Father. The love of the Father sent the Son of grace to heal our brokenness. How were we broken? Our transgressions broke us and kept us broken, but so do our sibling trying to play father. Our Father sent the Son to mend us and the Son did what he saw the Father do. Are we moneychangers in your temple who need our tables tossed? Maybe we are living stones God is building into a spiritual house.

Do we use our own tools on the stones the builders rejected to try to make them worthy of God’s house? The Spirit of God gave us tools as gifts. Christ Jesus gave us gifts of ministry. In Christ, we produce fruit of Christ Jesus and His Spirit. Of ourselves, we produce the fruit of the knowledge of evil and death. In Christ, we produce the fruit of the tree of life. There is no love in the knowledge of evil. Love is a product of the tree of life. Speak the gospel attached to the tree of life.

The word of God is fit for correction. We do not need to speak the word with condemnation. We do not need to speak the gospel of bad news. That is an oxymoron. The word prepares us for every good work. God breathes the word and God breathed us. I am not written on a page. I am alive in Christ Jesus and the life I now live is Christ alive in me. Christ Jesus lives in my heart and not scrolls of jots and tittles. God sent Christ Jesus to fulfill and love fulfills. Christ may come to my heart, but He fully fills me. That is how I love God with all that is within me.

How can I convert that into loving all my neighbors? Do I need to lay down the tools I picked up in my brokenness to protect myself? I have a protector in Christ. My defense does not come from me and offence comes when I seek to defend myself. Has the love been here all the time? Has my own defenses made my heart a heart of stone? Now the tools of God removes my heart of stone and replaces the heart of flesh. I lay my tools down, my life for the life of Christ Jesus. I do not lay my life down in death, but for life. I do not lay my tools down to stop working, but to work the work of God prepared for me.

Where is the love we thought we would find? Looking for us. God became part of the creation in Jesus. All of creation waits for the revealing of the children of God. Jesus revealed the children by revealing the Father. Within our hearts the Spirit of Christ cries, “Abba Father!” Denying love and withholding love from siblings has blinded us from the love we seek. Jesus came to restore our sight. In our short sightedness, we have broken one another. We have a new commandment. That we love one another as Christ Jesus has loved us. Unless the Lord builds a house, the builders build in vain.