LOVE IN THE PRESENT TENSE
Love does not live in yesterday. Yesterday is sealed; its words have already been spoken, its chances already taken or missed. Nor does love yet live in tomorrow; tomorrow is a promise, not a possession. Love lives now. It breathes in the present tense. It steps into this very day and asks what faithfulness looks like in the moment God has placed before us.
Today, we can love one another.
Not with abstractions or intentions postponed, but with actual attention; with eyes that notice, hearts that soften, and hands that are willing. Today, we can choose empathy. We can pause long enough to imagine the burdens another person carries, the unseen fears they wrestle, the prayers they have whispered in private. This is not weakness; it is Christlike strength.
Jesus gives us a simple, searching measure for such love. He teaches that whatever we desire for others to do for us, we are to do the same for them; this, He says, gathers up the law and the prophets into one lived obedience (Matthew 7:12). He does not ground this command in sentiment, but in action. Love is not merely felt; it is practiced.
To live this way requires what Jesus elsewhere calls a healthy eye, an eye filled with light. When the eye is clear, the whole person is illumined; when it is darkened by suspicion or contempt, the inner life follows it into shadow (Matthew 6:22-23). The way we see others shapes the way we treat them. A distorted vision produces a distorted love. A healed vision produces mercy.
Walking with an eye full of light sets the rhythm of our steps. It teaches us to move by the cadence of brotherhood rather than the tempo of rivalry. We stop keeping score. We stop reducing people to labels, histories, or headlines. Instead, we learn to recognize faces before arguments, souls before positions, neighbors before adversaries.
Every person we meet today carries the mark of the Creator. From the first pages of the word of God, we are told that humanity was formed in God’s own image; male and female alike bearing His likeness, entrusted with dignity and worth that no failure or flaw can erase (Genesis 1:27). That truth does not fade with time or disagreement. It remains stamped upon every life like divine fingerprints pressed into clay.
If we truly believe this, it must change how we look at one another.
It should slow our judgments. It should temper our words. It should restrain our anger and enlarge our compassion. The image of God in another person may be cracked by sin, scarred by suffering, or obscured by confusion, but it is still there. And Christ did not come to discard what bears His Father’s image; He came to redeem it.
Loving today means seeing the person in front of us as someone Christ deemed worth His blood. It means choosing kindness when sarcasm would be easier. It means listening when interrupting would feel more satisfying. It means refusing to let fear, exhaustion, or bitterness have the final say.
Tomorrow will bring its own opportunities. Yesterday rests in the mercy of God. But today is ours to steward.
Today, let us love.
Let us love not because it is convenient, but because it is faithful. Not because others deserve it, but because Christ has shown it to us first. And let us trust that even small acts of present-tense love are gathered by God and woven into His greater work of renewal.
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Lord Jesus, give us eyes filled with Your light. Teach us to see each person we meet today as one who bears the image of God. Slow our hearts, soften our words, and guide our steps in the way of love. Help us to love faithfully in this moment You have given. Amen.
BDD
