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Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Pathways of love
Pathways of love.
As we continue to work on love we need to realize that being kind leads to other ways to show love. That being patient also leads to other ways of showing love. That rejoicing, bearing, believing, hoping and enduring love also leads to more ways to show love. That these are gate way if you will to other ways to show love. For some of us this is a hard concept to realize; for we have shown the other(s) types of love without being kind or patient... Now those others of love are mercy, goodness, sympathy, giving, helping, including, affection, providing, protecting... and forgetting and more.
You see when we think of love we usually think of the latter. Yes, those are ways to show love but one needs to have the foundation if you will for it to be real. We can be helping someone physically and at the same time having negative thoughts... For the helping is good but without kindness, patience... our helping is just a shadow of the real. Think about it. Have you helped someone, and you did it just because... Have you given to someone and had those thought that if they would... How about sympathy, have you given a sympathy card... and had thoughts of ____. How about forgetting a hurtful action. Oh how we do try that instead of really forgiving. If the foundation of our love is right then those actions that follow will be so much more meaningful... so much more effective... and hopefully they will point to our Lord Jesus. For without Him we struggle to show love properly if you will. With that let us all still work on showing love. For next week we will continue with love with going over the fruit of the Spirit.
Monday, March 17, 2014
A reflection on love
We have been working on how to love, how to love people... The last few weeks we worked on patience, kindness and rejoicing. So the step back that we are taking is to reflect on how we have been doing with loving in these ways.
Let me share with you some of my reflections and insight. All of us grow up in different families... fathers and mothers who taught us or showed us things about life... and that would include love. Now with that we need to recognize that some have not had an upbringing that showed love in the right way... while some have had that good nurturing. As for me well I fall in the middle of both groups, maybe toward the lower end of not being showed love the "better way". Yes my parents loved me... just like many parents love their children... but there is that disconnect of not knowing how to love or how to do actions of love. For instance when one get's married you hear that love takes 100% and !00% that it is not a 50/50 thing. But do we really understand that? Well we say I love my wife 100% reasoning that we do things for her... not knowing what love really involves. As for marriage I would say that love involves doing those things we learned and more with special desire if you will.
Back on track, you see if you are not being patient then you are not loving or showing love. You are showing something else and that else is not good. If you are not being kind to someone then you are not show/giving love you are giving something else and that else is not good. If you are not rejoicing with, then you are showing something else and that else is not good. I started to think about how I related to my children when they were young, you know you learn different things about raising children... good things but it seems that the most important part was not taught. That of showing love, showing patience, being kind, and ... even in the mist of acts of wrong in our children. For it is so easy to lose our patience and not to be kind... when we are dealing with them in times of "trouble..." and when that happens other things take the place of love. Oh how we might control our anger, sometimes... the thing is that the basics of what love is, is not being shown... hence no real love. Even when we are dealing with our children in the mist of discipline we need show the things of love, acting with patience, kindness... Oh how I wished someone would have taught me how to love earlier on in life! You see you are either loving, or maybe just not doing anything or you are doing things that are not loving and hopefully not things that are evil. Truly I want to love my wife, love my children and to also love others. With that let us keep on working on the three areas of love we have been working on, hopefully this will help us all to love more.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
More loving
This week we will continue to work on love. Last week we introduced kindness. We will still be working on kindness this week; also we will still be working on our patience too. Last we I made a comment, "even people who are prompt... need our patience." The fact of love is that people need love. Did you get that? People need love and you need love. Now with that we will continue on working on giving the love people need. If people need you to be patient, understanding then you give love that shows patience... If someone needs you to be kind the you show kindness... What I do want us to understand that sometimes we need to show multiple types of love in situations. The next act of love that we are going to introduce is that of rejoicing with truth. In our devotional for this we focused on when one tells the truth; confessing if you will, we should rejoice and forgive. Also we looked at the motives of someone(good will, truthfully doing...) when someone is doing something.... and it goes a muck. What I want us to do is to look at the word rejoicing; but remembering that we need to rejoice in truth too. So many times we lack rejoicing. Someone does something... a good deed we should rejoice, someone accomplishes something we should rejoice. God blesses someone we should rejoice. someone is happy/rejoicing we should rejoice... Even if it seem ordinary, of little importance... The bible is clear, "rejoice with those who rejoice". Romans 12:15 In fact the bible is full on people rejoicing. Psalm 118:24 "This is the day that the lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." So let us have a heart of rejoicing and a heart of being glad. So now we are to be patient and kind and rejoicing(also rejoicing in truth); let us work on all three this week.
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