I think most people here know that my favorite subject to blog about is love.
Not just shmoopy, kissy-face, sappy "luuuv", but LOVE. The kind of love that God shows us and says that we should show to one another. Today at church, one of our new pastors preached on loving each other, and I really felt that this was a good time to review it here too.
Matthew 22:37-39
Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:
Love your neighbor as yourself."
Luke 6:31-33
"Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that."
John 13:34, 35
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this, all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another."
These are just a few of the many verses in the Bible that talk about loving each other. Jesus spent
so much of His ministry preaching about love and with love. He didn't perform His miracles to be the center of attention or to be the life of the party. He did them out of love for others.
When we go out in the world, how easy is it for us to overlook others' needs? Pastor Brenda told us in her sermon that she was at the grocery store the other day. There was a young mother with a screaming baby a few lanes over, trying to check out. Although the screaming baby got everyone's attention, the other shoppers all ignored the mother, who was close to tears. Finally, a young couple, looking work-weary and tired themselves, went up to the mother and whispered in her ear. She broke down crying and nodded, picked up her baby and sat down on a bench to feed the child, while the young couple continued loading her groceries up in bags, and even helped her bring her purchases out to the car after she had finished. This young couple took 5 minutes out of their busy day to help a young mother in need, and not only were they a blessing to her, but also to everyone checking out that night.
A random act of love doesn't just affect the persons directly involved, but also anyone that's watching. There are about 4,000 people in my church. If each of those people went out and showed God's love to 20 people this week, that's 80,000 people affected. If each of us did that every week for a year,
we'd show God's love to over 4 MILLION people over the course of that year. Now, that might seem like a huge number of people, but remember, I'm not talking about going out and overtly witnessing, simply showing God's love to other people.
What would happen if every Revelifer went out into the world and loved just 5 people this week? How many people could we affect this week? Or this year?
Comments (2)
We do not love ourselves the way we love a lover or someone we adore (unless we're egomaniacs of course). But how we love ourselves is simply having concern for our wellbeing and feelings.
It's basically just saying give a damn about your neighbor as much as you do about yourself.
This was a great post. Sorry I am so late in commenting on it.