“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”; and “Love your neighbor as yourself”. There is no commandment greater than these. MARK 12:30-31

A while ago I was challenged with what God considers the most important thing we can do with our life. The quote above gives us Jesus’ clear answer to someone who asked him precisely that: We should love God (vertical relationship) and love our neighbours as ourselves (horizontal relationships). And the way I should love is extreme: with all our being! This is a very tall order… Actually, it is so impossible, that the only way we can do this is with the help of His Holy Spirit living within us!

Well, here at Beacon we also seek to live out this command. Loving God provides the motivation for why we are here. Loving campers is what we seek to do each week, as each of the summer camps come and go. But we also see this love being evident in how the volunteers of each camp interact with one another and with the rest of us who live and serve at camp. Cabin Leaders, Session Directors, Kitchen Staff, Summer Staff, we are all called on to grow in love. Jesus said: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35). What a challenge for all of us! May God help us carry this out, at camp, in our homes, with our church fellowship, at school and at work; especially with those we disagree with, or we find difficult to get along with.

May we all be encouraged, as disciples of Jesus Christ, to obey this “greatest commandment” and to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength! To our modern ears it may sound strange to be ordered to love. We think love is something that happens, but cannot be commanded at will. However, the biblical view on love is that our will decides who and what we love, and the rest of our life accommodates itself to that first love. So, for example, Jesus warns us we cannot love and serve two masters, God and money: “Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24). But perhaps there is something else competing for the position of “first love” in your life. A career, a valued possession, a non-Christian boyfriend, or the selfish pursuit of your individualistic goals in life. What we love we will serve. So Jesus warns us to avoid those rabbit trails that ultimately end in disappointment and emptiness, and to love God at the center of our life; for as we do so everything else in our lives will fall into its proper orbit and become a blessing and not a curse. As we love God, we will learn to truly love our neighbor. Shall we trust Him? Shall we love Him? – It is our free choice, for all true love is freely given.

With all our best wishes for each one of you,

Andrew “Monk” & Marianne “Tia” Nunn