Love, Right and Wrong

As I am reading again through the new testament, it is more striking than ever how love is always stressed over right or wrong. Right and wrong is important but stays in the realm of behavior. Right and wrong actions can be done without real love and relationship. Love, on the other hand, goes beyond behavior to relationship. It is what drives us to choose right because we care and desire relationship. Love is what gives life to obedience and sacrifice which would both be dead without love. When you love someone, isn't it more natural to do what is right for them? When you feel loved and seen and valued by someone, don't you long to be with them and treat them well?

I have tended to separate love and justice. Sometimes they don't seem compatible. I have struggled as a parent with righting wrongs and the need to fix behavior, teach self control and require obedience because those things can sometimes seem at odds with grace and love. I often hear other Christians make a distinction. Should I offer love and grace or justice and truth? The assumption is that love and grace negate justice and truth. I think this is false. Love and grace motivate justice and truth and go deeper underneath them to change the heart. Love and grace motivate and change us. So what should be stressed and nurtured and focussed on? What comes first, love or justice? As a parent, when I am careful to spend time with my kids, see them, listen to them, make an effort to see what is going on in their heart beneath the behavior, point out the good and value and nurture their God given passions and gifts (which may be very different than mine) and communicate the love of the Father to them, they tend to want to obey more. When I say "yes" as much as possible and give as much freedom to them as is appropriate, they tend to trust and come back to me for guidance. Isn't it true with us as well? In my experience as a parent, love comes first. This is what I aslo see in the Scriptures and it is more and more how I am experiencing the Father.

So did Jesus act in obedience and submit to sacrifice primarily to right wrongs, or out of passionate love and desire for relationship? What Father do you worship; one more concerned with making wrong right or One who knows and loves His children well and is longing to gather them into His arms and see them glow in His presence deeply trusting His love for them? What difference does that make for you in how you live and relate to the Father, each other and yourself?