I annoyed my mom to death as a kid asking “why?”. No matter what she told me to do, I wanted to know why. When she answered, I asked why that was the answer. And so on.

Week to week, from Ben’s sermons to podcasts, Bible studies and random conversations, a lot of theme words start to pop up. Faith, truth, grace, gratitude, patience, freedom, all just from a quick scroll back through show titles in the past few months. But no matter how complicated we try to make it, God always points us all back to the same answer. Love ties it all together, like a start/finish line we always seem to circle back to.

It’s easy to get the cause and effect backwards on this one, thinking that we love others so God will love us. But He loves us either way. We love others because God loves us. Loving others isn’t a prerequisite. It’s a litmus test. His love propels our love for others. And if we don’t love others, it basically shows disregard for His love for us.

I have a feeling if I tried to play 20 questions with God, asking why He told me to do this or that, He could spend an eternity fitting “love” somewhere into His answer, because that seems to be His ultimate theme word.