Several years ago I went on a “wilderness trip” in Canada.  I learned a lot.  I have forgotten some but I have remembered this, “If you ask the wrong question, the answer probably won’t really help.”  Wow.  Just wow.  I remember thinking about the hundreds of wrong questions I have asked.  Truthfully, it was a bit discouraging.  From that week until now I have tried (though I have often failed) to ask better questions.  Sometimes I just ask other people what questions I should be asking.  I not only don’t know the answers, I don’t even know the questions!  We have been studying love and there are a lot of wrong questions in this arena.  For example, “How can I get _____ to love me?”—Wrong question.  “How can I love _____ when he/she is so rude to me?”—Wrong question.  The better question is, “How can I become a loving person?”  As Dallas Willard so wisely wrote in 2007, “Love as Paul and the New Testament presents it, is not an action—not even action with special intention—but a source of action.  It is a condition out of which actions of a certain type emerge.”  That is not only good philosophy and psychology—that is Biblical reality!  We can only fake it for so long.  Jesus put it this way, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.”  Our actions reveal our inner life.  Our disposition or our character is the well-spring of our actions.  If the source is bad, the result is bad.  The only person who can actually love an enemy is a person whose inner disposition has become loving.  Of course most of us would like God to simply zap us into this “state of love” but He will not do this.  What He will do is help us clean up the inside so that His disposition can actually become ours!  This is going to take some work, time, effort, discipline and severe mercy.  It is notable that we are told to “pursue love” at least three times in the New Testament.  The passages that admonish us to “put off” and “put on” are in the context of love.  Of course the Sermon on the Mount is a profound source of insight into these matters and if we were to take Jesus seriously we would be making some progress in this matter of love.  The Great Commandment is intimidating.  Loving other people is complicated.  Becoming a person of love sounds antiquated.  But this is what we were made for.  Imagine how wonderful it would be to actually and naturally love people as Jesus did.  This is not a dream.  This is possible.  Lord willing, this week and next we’ll talk about how to get on with it.  Let’s do this!