The Spirit of Loyalty

We serve the Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that means that at the center of our faith is the virtue of love. When we say that God is love: we mean that the Father, Son, and Spirit always and forever give themselves to one another in love and loyalty. Paul says that the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. This means that the love of God in an important sense, is the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. The Holy Spirit is the bond of love that unites the Father and the Son in loving loyalty, and therefore the Holy Spirit has been given to us to unite us to one another and to the Father and the Son. So who are your people? Who are the people that God has given you to love, to serve, to cling to? What is the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in your life? Who are the people that you are loving now more than ever? Who are the people that you are more loyal to now than you were five or ten years ago. When God saves you, he saves you into his family, into his kingdom, into his city, and it is here in the Church that he promises to bless you as you give yourself away. And this is the key: it will not do to say that you will start being loyal to that guy over there as soon as he starts being loyal to me. It will not do to say that you will start being loyal to them as soon as they start showing some concern for me. That is a false gospel. That is not the way God has been with you. The Trinity is bound up in loving loyalty that is based upon self-giving, self-sacrifice. The call to loyalty means opening your eyes and looking around you. That’s what the Spirit does. The Spirit hovers at Creation, the Spirit inspires artisans, the Spirit empowers judges, the Spirit gives boldness to apostles. Look to your children, look to your spouse, look to your neighbors, and look to those people in your rows and behind you and in front of you. These are your people. Your people are the people of God. You belong to one another because you have been united by the one Holy Spirit who unites us in the harmony of the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit has been poured out upon us; therefore live in the power of this Spirit. Cultivate loyalty.