It’s unthinkable that death is the end of someone we love. That resistance deep inside us is an echo of the heart of God. We rejoice because Easter declares that LOVE, not death, gets the final word!

To learn from Jesus without practicing what he says is a foolish and unstable way to live your one and only life. Wise people build their lives on an unshakable foundation by choosing again and again to love like Jesus and live as Jesus.

Choosing life over death requires discerning between true and false influences. Seeing the good or bad fruit they produce empowers us to choose the influence we want to follow.

In Christ, God has already chosen life for us all, but he lovingly lets us choose when and how much we experience the new life he gives. Why would we miss out by going down the wide road when the road less traveled leads to more and better life both now and later?

Because the way of life is a person, discipleship to Jesus is an experience of loving and being loved. We come alive in God’s kingdom when we choose to practice God’s love, not by our devotion to theories and ideas about God. Our choice to practice love or not determines whether we’re moving closer to or further from the invitation of Jesus to become human again.

We anticipate with great hope the day that God’s justice fully arrives and forever changes the world. Trusting God to be the judge frees us to live in love. By learning a life of love now, we’ll be prepared for a future when only love will remain.

No judgment doesn't mean no feedback or input, but it does mean we don’t see ourselves as superior to others. Instead, we live in mutual relationship with them, humbly giving and receiving feedback. It’s in the absence of judgment that we are free to help each other grow and flourish in love.

Fake news about God, ourselves, others and reality lies at the root of all that is wrong in the world. When we act on these lies, destruction always follows. But when we see and act on the truth about God and ourselves, we will also see the truth about others and reality. The truth frees us to live fully in love.

We are constantly tempted to place ourselves in the center of everything, creating a false orbit that traps us in perpetual judgment. But when we recenter our lives in God and receive his love as the grounding force that provides everything we need, we’re empowered to love people instead of judging them.

The culture teaches us to respond to judgment with judgment in a never-ending cycle, fueling more and more anger and hate. Jesus invites us to the slow burn of love that’s kindled by a commitment to remain in love in the midst of judgment.