Matthew 7:12

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets ~ Matthew 7:12


It really is all about love – love for God, love for others, and love for self. If we do not love God first and foremost, and if we do not have God’s love within us, we cannot really know what love is. We live in a superficial world which states love easily and carelessly. I love my home, I love ice cream, I love movie nights, or whatever. The term love has become a commonplace word used to give meaning to the meaningless. Real love means devotion, commitment, and sacrifice. Love is not just another adjective for a materialistic pleasure. Next to loving God and having God’s love within us, we love others. Loving others requires that we know what it is to have God’s grace applied to our lives. Grace is to receive the free and unmerited favour of God, though we did not earn it, or do anything for it. God loves us because we are. We are to love others because we were created in God’s image, and so were they. As we received God’s grace in the midst of our failures, so others deserve our grace recognizing they may fail too. Grace and mercy are the two most important factors of God’s love. Both go together as we are loved by God and love others as God loves them. This type of love is bigger than we are. Loving others means that we see them with God’s eyes, and not with our eyes. Our eyes may be judgmental and critical. God’s eyes are just and holy. Which leads us to loving self. If we do not love our self, we put aside the love God has for us and we in fact reject it. God created us and has a purpose for us. We cannot justify the words and meaning of “for God so loved the world that he sent his only Son” if we hate our self. God’s Son came in love, to love and show love. True love is the summation of the law and the Prophets. Love makes it easy to do good for others, just as you would have them do for you.

Pastor Julia

image by pixabay

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comments

Popular posts from this blog

Proverbs 18:2

Image
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in sharing their own opinions ~ Proverbs 18:2 If we are going to understand something, we must fully digest it so that when we speak, we speak with wisdom. When we have only half truths in our mind, our words become empty and senseless. We then puff out air rather than understanding when we speak. A wise person will want to improve their mind through learning in various ways from the world around them. A person who delights in spiritual understanding will find peace and enjoyment in reading the Word of God on a daily basis, and in participating with God’s people in a learning and praising environment – the church! We come together in corporate worship with the understanding that not one of us knows all things, but we bend our mind and heart to learn what God has to show and say to us. A foolish person makes a show of what they “know” to please their friends or to save face in front of them. More often a wise person will hold t
Read more

Romans 8:26

Image
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans ~ Romans 8:26 Many days, many times, I have the words for prayer. It comes forth and flows fairly naturally as I converse with my Lord God. I hope in the God I worship to hear me, and to receive my words, as I pray in the name of Jesus and believe in Him, my intercessor. He is my Living Saviour, my High Priest, standing at the right hand of God the Father. But there are times when my pain has been so deep that my words will not come. There are times when my agony is so piercing that what words I may speak would not be enough. And so, in my deep, black moments, I come before my God and let my darkest emotions erupt in sounds that only He can understand. The Holy Spirit within me cries out in my stead, and He becomes my second intercessor. It is not that He is not there with me in all my prayers, but there are times wh
Read more

Isaiah 43:19

Image
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert ~ Isaiah 43:19 When we meet a challenge, we are often found discouraged, lost, even hopeless. Nothing is working, everything seems to be against us. We do not know how to move forward, so we remain curled up in a ball. Then, a glimmer of light shines through! Hope is regained and movement is stirred within. Don’t we become excited when we begin to feel it? God moves like that. We cannot see our way around it, but He can and does. And He makes a way for us out of the calamity of our fears. It is the feeling of springtime after a long winter, or the smell of fresh cut grass. Life stirs within and we move and we see what God saw all the time – the answer to our dilemma. Our desert place becomes an oasis, and we can do what we are called to do. Something totally unexpected happens, something unheard of, but it begins in our life, and we feel the
Read more