Anyways, just a quick word for y'all. The other day I had an "aha" moment. we are called to LOVE. To love God, to love people, to love goodness, to love light, to love the rich, to love the poor, to love our family, to love our enemies, to love when we want to, and to love when it hurts.
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." -John 13:34-35
Love is so important that it's our calling card as Christians.
There's a song called "By Our Love" by Christy Nockels and it says in the chorus "they will know us by our love." So this is what I realized, if there's one thing I want to be known or remembered by, it's my love. And honestly, right now i'm not doing so great with that. So here's my challenge to you. Go and find somebody right now to love. It can be a family member, a friend, someone who annoys you, or even someone you just haven't talked to in a while. Be a light in their life.
But here's one problem I have come across...sometimes I don't know how to go about loving people. Some people like to be encouraged and talked to, but other people like you to respect the silence they enjoy and find comforting. So how do we know what to do?
PRAY. when in doubt, pray day in and day out.
if we pray for another, the Lord will deliver. he will work in their heart and change yours, too.
" 1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." -1 Corinthians 13
Love Never Fails by Brandon Heath http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nQy-aP_Koo
By Our Love by Christy Nockels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJN7kXvEnDw
I love this, Alexa! That's really good advice about praying over how to love people. Thanks for posting, I think this is something that we forget a lot, and we really need to remember.
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