Therefore...

Our faith is a grateful response to God’s faithfulness. God is faithful first. We live in God’s world, and God's loving grace is before and after, above and below, to our left and to our right, inside and out. Once we realize that, there is only one appropriate response, and that is to live with a similar grace in our dealings with one another. It is not that God will love us if we love one another. Rather “God is love, therefore, we are to love one another.”

The gospel (a word which means "good news" when translated literally) is good news for all, the good news that love surrounds us before we have faith and after it has left us, before we have kicked the addiction and after it has kicked us, before we are old enough to understand anything and after we are too old to care. It is good news for the homeless on London streets and for those who live in the Senior’s Homes in Alaska, and for you and me and all us ordinary sinners and saints.