Helping People Connect with God and with Others
I believe that at the end of a day most people would like to think that they were loving toward others during that day. However, if we are using a water downed definition of the word love to measure our actions against, we will only be deceiving ourselves.
Christ was more than a model, for He is the source of the very love that we need to show others. If we are to love others, we have to do more than try to imitate His behavior, we have to receive Him and His greatest act of love for us.
As you read this another hurricane is heading toward the U.S. When Irma hits, I don’t know what you will hear in the reports. You might hear stories of neighbors looking out for their neighbors or you might hear stories of people taking advantage of others. For me, it doesn’t matter what I hear that others are doing for I am committed to loving first. I hope you will do the same.
Summer is a great time to get together with people. Schedules are more relaxed, kids are out of school, it stays light much later. Think about what you could provide a group of people at work, your neighbors, or your family that would be the rallying point. Toss it out there and see what happens.
The change began when I realized how much God loved me. It included embracing Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for me, but it was so much more. In turn, I started to love God back and then began to love others.
It is supernatural to respond to evil with love by showing genuine compassion for the other person or persons. Love will take the air out of evil and suffocate it so that it does not spread.
Many conflicts arise in families, at work, and especially on social media when someone speaks into another person’s life who has not won the right to do so. More harm that good usually comes out of approaching someone in the wrong way.
Choosing to love means looking beyond a person’s job title, skin color, religious identity, nationality and those things that make them different from you. Instead, seeing them as a human being with needs, strengths, and faults just like you, and treating them with dignity and respect as you would like to be treated.
Life comes with celebrations and disappointments. It comes with victories and defeats. It comes with grace and injustice. What makes life beautiful is how we deal with it. If we choose to love first, we will have many more beautiful days than not.
Could it be that Jesus Christ was actually revealing to him the formula for how to live the ultimate life? I believe He was. In doing so, He gave us a formula to live by.
Connections 