Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. — Romans 13:8-10

Alex asked an interesting question and got a multitude of answers. As we dialogued tonight at Convivium about a pending "marriage" between our Mosaic community and another Mosaic community here in Nashville, this topic came back to my mind. We have made "Love is the context for all mission" our first core value. Because without it, the mission is empty. Here’s my answer to his question, "what motivates ‘leading people to Jesus?’ He’s been following our conversation about posting threads and wondered about the motivation behind that as well…. what do you think? why do you do what you do? why must we?"

I must because of Love. Because God loves me so passionately and madly. Because I love Him so passionately. Because He loves the world so passionately and madly. Because He daily pours His love over me, drenching me. Because He pours His love INTO me until I’m flooding the whole of creation around me with it. He opens my eyes to the world around me. I took that pill and saw the Matrix — I now know the Truth and the lies. And each day He shows me something new; I see the world through His eyes and fall madly, passionately in love with all humanity through His heart. How can I not? How can I not love them? How can I not fall to my knees in agony with them in the darkness? How can I not fiercely fight the enemy who’s tearing them apart? How can I not tell them the Truth of who they are, who they were made to be? I must because He is Love and to know Him is to Love.

To me, this sums up our first core value. God loves. God Loves. With a passion and a depth we cannot fathom. His love is endless. Nothing, NOTHING we do will ever make Him love us less — even if we spit on Him and speak of Him in hateful cursing.

He loves. And the more intimately I walk with Him, the more I love. I love Him more. And I love the things He loves more. The more intimately I walk with Him the deeper my love grows, the more capacity I have to love more, and love deeper, and love more passionately.

Love is what motivated God to create us. Love is what motivated Jesus to die on a cross, fight death and rise three days later to redeem us. Love is what motivates the Holy Spirit to convict and prod and teach and counsel and comfort. God, in all His trinity, is motivated by love. He pours His love into me — and I am motivated by love. I am moved by love into action for those whom He loves—through me.