The football or soccer season with all its excessive finance, passion and disappointments is upon us again - although the season extends so long now that some uninterested and disinterested people think there is never a close season.
Imagine a football team, with exciting new strips in beautiful colours, playing the most silky soccer ever seen, but never aiming for the goal.
How many matches would they win? To focus upon what is essential is important.
What does God require of man? Jesus spelled it out so clearly.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the first and greatest commandment.
The second is like it.
Love your neighbour as yourself.
" It is not complicated.
There is no mystery.
When He was questioned, Jesus gave a simple precise immediate answer.
Micah answered this question equally simply when he said, "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God".
When Paul wrote to young pastor Timothy, he summed it all up in one succinct sentence.
"The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
" When writing to a church this same leader taught, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
It would be very difficult to improve on these statements.
There comes that moment when we ask, "What are we producing, and what is the end result?" What is the point of being energetic, busy and active, if we are not going for the goal? God so loved the world that He sent Jesus, and when Jesus prayed that night on which He was arrested, He was overheard praying deeply profound words.
Jesus revealed the nature of God to people, and His desire was that the love God had for Him might be in us.
Sandy Shaw