“Everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35 NIV).
The distinguishing mark of a Christian is not a cross, a crucifix, a dove, or a fish on a bumper sticker. The sign of a Christian is love. How many people know you’re a Christian because of your loving lifestyle? We sing about love, talk about love, pray about love, and study love. But do we do it? To develop love as your life principle and make it your greatest aim, you have to take some action as soon as you finish reading this devotional. You’re going to have to take the initiative. Love acts! First, start acting loving in your current relationships. Have you acted unlovingly toward someone, and it’s time to seek reconciliation? Make things right with your kids, your spouse, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your parents, or someone at school or work. Then, start increasing the number of relationships you have. If the most important aim in life is to love, we need to build as many relationships as possible. Why? Because the world will know about God’s love by the way we love each other—and especially by the way they are loved by Christians. You cannot live a loving lifestyle as a hermit. You spell love T-I-M-E. It takes time to love other people. If you love your friends, you’ve got to spend time with them. If you love your kids, you’ve got to spend time with them. If you love Jesus, you’ve got to spend time with him. Love always costs time and energy. But it’s always worth it. Can you imagine what would happen if everyone in the church loved like this—if we all committed ourselves to acting in love and giving our time unselfishly so that people could experience a taste of how much God loves them? It would change the world. It would grow God’s Kingdom. It would make God so happy. People are attracted to Christ more than they are persuaded to him. They’re attracted by the love of God shown through the people who claim to follow him. And they won’t care what we know until they first know that we care.
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"If I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:2 NIV).
Love is not a feeling. Love is a choice. Even when you don’t feel like it, you can choose to do it anyway. There's a story of a young mother who felt overwhelmed and was battling depression. It seemed like her schedule and the demands on her life were too much to handle. She felt like all she did was nag her kids and scold them incessantly. When she looked at herself, she saw a failure. In her despair, she cried out to the Lord. As she spent more time reading the Bible, she found the answer in 1 Corinthians 13. Five words in particular leaped out at her: “Without love, I am nothing.” So she wrote out these words and placed the notes all over her house—on her refrigerator door, on the dashboard of her SUV, at the top of her calendar. “I realized the single most important thing I could do was love my family,” she said. “So I began to live my life by love. I began to run my home on love. It was as transforming as when I brought Christ into my life. It brought the happiness back into my life and my home.” What made the difference for this young mom? She made a choice. It wasn’t always the easy choice, but it changed the whole dynamic of her home and the way she saw herself as a mother and as God’s child. Acting in love when you don’t feel like it is actually a greater expression of love than when you do feel like it. Love is getting up in the middle of the night to help a sick kid after you’ve already had a long day and went to bed late. Love is being patient with your spouse when they’re irritable. Love is giving a person what they need, not what they deserve. It’s easier to act your way into a feeling than feel your way into an action. If you act in a loving way, eventually the feelings will follow. That’s important to remember when you are trying to love people who seem unlovable. When you love in spite of your feelings, that’s called loving by faith. And it doesn’t just change the other person. It changes you, too, and makes you more like Jesus. “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV).
Love is our greatest aim in life because we were put here on earth to learn to love God and others. The Bible makes it clear in the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 13 why love is the most important value. Without love, all that you say is ineffective. “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV). Words without love are just noise. People resent and reject unloving words. But they will listen and respond to words spoken in love. Without love, all that you know is incomplete. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge . . . but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2 NIV). The world is exploding with information and knowledge. Yet many of our most basic problems are not being solved, because the world is not looking for more knowledge. The world is looking for love. Without love, all that you believe is insufficient. “If I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2 NIV). Many people have the misconception that being a Christian is just about believing certain truths and doctrines. But do you love Jesus? Do you realize he loves you? Christianity is about experiencing the love Jesus has for you and learning how to love like him. Without love, all that you give is insignificant. “If I give all I possess to the poor . . . but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3 NIV). There are all kinds of motivations for giving, including obligation or prestige or guilt. Just because you give doesn’t mean you’re doing it in love. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. Without love, all that you accomplish is inadequate. “If I were burned alive for preaching the Gospel but didn’t love others, it would be of no value whatever” (1 Corinthians 13:3 TLB). You can have all kinds of great accomplishments. You can even sacrifice your life for the greatest cause in the world—the Kingdom of God—but without love, it’s wasted effort. You can have the eloquence of an orator, the knowledge of a genius, the faith of a miracle worker, the generosity of a philanthropist, and the dedication of a martyr. But if you don’t love, it doesn’t count. The good news is that you can love others because God first loved you. Jesus says that as you live within his love, he will help you to love others. When you draw closer to him, your ability to love will increase—he makes it possible for you to live out the calling to love others. “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (Colossians 3:13 NLT).
A lot of people think God carries grudges. They picture God up in heaven, waiting to zap them for anything they do wrong. Here’s what God is really like: “I am the God who forgives your sins, and I do this because of who I am. I will not hold your sins against you” (Isaiah 43:25 GNT). God wants to forgive, and he has done everything necessary to forgive our sins in Christ. Even before the world was made, God was already planning in Christ to forgive your sins. He knows every wrong thing you’re going to do. None of it surprises him! All the guilt that’s in your life, God made a plan to offer you forgiveness for it even before you were born. That’s why God can say this: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1 NIV). Condemnation is gone because of what Jesus Christ did for us—that means unconditional, complete, consistent, eternal, by-grace forgiveness in all of our lives. What a relief! You don’t have to suffer or pay for your sins now or in eternity. It’s paid for by Jesus Christ. You are forgiven if you accept that gift of salvation from Jesus. Once you recognize that you’re forgiven, you are then enabled and strengthened to forgive other people. How do you do that? “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (Colossians 3:13 NLT). Take a good look at yourself, and you may see ugliness, selfishness, and sin. But the important thing is how God sees you. You are his creation, a masterpiece designed to live for him and bless others. When you take a good look through God’s eyes, you see the forgiveness that only he can give. By accepting his forgiveness in your life, you’ll be able to offer it to others. “Treat everyone you meet with dignity” (1 Peter 2:17 The Message).
You are infinitely valuable to God. God created you. Jesus died for you. God puts his Spirit within you. And God wants you to be with him forever in eternity. That’s quite an investment God has made in you! He would not have done that if you were not of the greatest worth to him. There are two things that make something valuable. The first is who made it. There’s a huge difference in the value of a Fabergé egg decorated with diamonds and the eggs you dye at Easter with your kids. “We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10 NLT). God doesn’t create junk. God created you, and you are good! Before you were born, God planned out your purpose and who he wanted you to be. He does not make mistakes. The value of something is also determined by what someone will pay for it. How much is your house worth? It’s worth whatever anybody will offer. How much is a piece of art worth? Only what somebody’s willing to pay for it. How much are you worth? Jesus Christ was willing to give his life: “He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God” (1 Peter 1:19 TLB). If you ever doubt your worth, just look at the cross. Jesus was willing to pay the ultimate price for you. That’s how precious you are to him. Jesus wants you to treat others as if they have the same value as you—because they do. God created everyone, and Jesus died for everyone. Every person in your life is precious to God, and he loves them unconditionally. The way you love others will show them just how valuable they are to God. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7 ESV).
When you have high expectations of someone, you don’t tell it like it is. You tell it like it could be. You believe in what God wants to do in and through that person, and you affirm God’s purpose for them. An excellent example of how this works is a story from Bruce Wilkinson, an author and teacher. Years ago he was a new professor at Multnomah University, and at the first faculty meeting, he received his class assignments. Another professor saw his sheet and said, “Bruce, you’ve been given two of the section A classes. They’re the brightest students in the university. They’re really engaged and a joy to teach. You’re fortunate to have section A students in your first year.” Bruce discovered that to be true—he absolutely loved teaching those kids. They were so much more fun to teach than the other classes. They were smarter and asked better questions. At the end of the year, Bruce told his department supervisor, “Man, I sure hope I get the section A classes again next year!” The supervisor told him, “Bruce, there is no section A. We canceled that program six years ago.” When Bruce went back and checked his grade books, he found that those “section A” classes may not have been advanced placement, but they got more A’s and wrote more thoughtful term papers than his other classes. Bruce realized that because he expected them to be better students, they rose to the challenge. Throughout your life, you will shape the people around you by your expectations of them. When you expect the best from others, you are reflecting the lasting love of Jesus. The apostle Paul tells us that love does not nag or perpetually bring up past mistakes. The Bible says, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7 ESV). Lasting love is forward-looking. It’s optimistic. Lasting love is full of hope. “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love” (Ephesians 4:2 NLT).
No relationship will survive without grace. You’ve got to cut people some slack! You’ve got to let things go. The Bible says, “Love patiently accepts all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NCV). In the original Greek, this literally means “covered with a roof.” Would you buy a house without a roof? Of course not. You’d have no protection from wind and rain. A roof covers and protects your home. In the same way, biblical love covers a relationship and lets some things slide. It doesn’t haul people into account for every mistake they make. You need a roof on your relationship because people damage pretty easily, and we need the kind of love that extends grace. Why is grace essential to relationships? The Bible says in Romans 3:10 that no one always does what is right. Nobody gets it right 100 percent of the time. It’s never just one person’s fault. There’s always a responsibility on both sides. It takes two people to disagree! We have to learn to extend grace to each other, because forgiveness is a two-way street. We cannot receive what we’re unwilling to give to other people. You build strong relationships by treating other people the way God treats you. Romans 15:7 says, “Accept each other just as Christ has accepted you” (NLT). When you accept others as they are, looking past their faults for the sake of love, that’s extending grace. “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 NLT).
We’ve been learning about how loving others the way God wants requires developing habits that keep you physically, emotionally, and spiritually renewed. The Bible says real love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8 NIV). You can’t love people that way without God’s help. And you don’t have that kind of power when you’re running on empty spiritually. Watch for signs that you may be headed for spiritual burnout. For instance, it may seem nothing (such as loving someone else) is worth the effort, or maybe you start blaming God for your problems. This isn’t unique to you; many of the Bible’s great heroes, like David, Moses, and Abraham, did the same things when they were in burnout stages. You maintain spiritual fitness in the same way you stay physically fit: by being intentional and disciplined. “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 NLT). No discipline is more important in developing spiritual fitness than spending regular, daily time with God. Nothing will help your life more than time spent alone with God, where you let him talk to you through the Bible and you talk to him through prayer. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:16 that even if outwardly your body suffers wear and tear, inwardly you can be spiritually renewed by spending time alone with God. This can take just 10 minutes in your living room chair before your day starts. You need that time alone with God because the quality of your relationship with God determines the quality of every other relationship you have. Human love will wear out. But to love more like Jesus, make your quiet time the number one priority in your day. When you do, your relationships will be transformed by the power of God’s love through you. “Being cheerful keeps you healthy” (Proverbs 17:22 GNT).
When you need to be physically recharged, your body gives you various signs. If your stomach growls, it’s time to eat. If your eyelids get heavy, it’s time to sleep. We tend to notice those signs, but we often overlook the other signs that say we need emotional recharging, such as a sense of being overwhelmed, a short fuse, an impatient outburst, or avoiding people. You also have no desire to love people when your emotional tank is running low. To keep on loving well and doing the things God’s called you to do, keep your emotional tank full. How do you do that? First, get some time alone. Even Jesus withdrew from crowds when he needed to recharge himself emotionally. Mark 6:31 says, “Then Jesus suggested, ‘Let’s get away from the crowds for a while and rest.’ For so many people were coming and going that they scarcely had time to eat” (TLB). People who are available all the time aren’t really fully available unless they set aside time to rest. Then figure out what activities recreate energy in your life and recharge you. Each one of us has different things that recharge us because we’re all made differently. It may be hobbies, a sport, a craft, or games for you. Find out what recharges you emotionally, and then make time for it. Jesus was the most intensive, ministry-oriented person who ever lived, yet the Bible says, “The Son of Man came, enjoying life” (Matthew 11:19 PHILLIPS). You weren’t made to be exhausted all the time. You were made to be more like Jesus. Finally, develop the habit of laughter. The Bible says, “Being cheerful keeps you healthy” (Proverbs 17:22 GNT). Laughter increases the number of T-cells in your body, which raises your immunity and releases endorphins in your brain. Laughter is good for your health! It’s God’s gift to you that doesn’t just make you enjoy life more; it also helps you love others well. “You made my body, Lord; now give me sense to heed your laws” (Psalm 119:73 TLB).
It’s hard to love when you’re tired. That’s right: Your physical condition has a strong impact on your relationships. Being energetic makes a big difference! What happens to your relationships when you’re run-down? Things that are usually small issues become big problems. You may be crankier, defensive, or more critical when you’re low on energy. If you’re committed to becoming better at loving others, develop habits that refresh you physically. The Bible teaches us many principles for health, but the three most basic are proper rest, a balanced diet, and regular exercise. Rest. Psalm 127:2 says, “It is senseless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night . . . for God wants his loved ones to get their proper rest” (TLB). If you are too tired to love your kids, your spouse, or a roommate, then your problem is first physical, not spiritual. It’s amazing how much better things look after a good night’s sleep. Balanced diet. The Bible says, “You made my body, Lord; now give me sense to heed your laws” (Psalm 119:73 TLB). God provides wonderful delights for us to enjoy and savor. We are meant to enjoy food! But he has also given us wisdom to know what and how much is good to put in our body—and what is not. We just need to do it. Regular exercise. “God has bought you with a great price. So use every part of your body to give glory back to God” (1 Corinthians 6:20 TLB). To overcome fatigue, you must commit to regular exercise. Study after study shows that exercise doesn’t deplete your energy. It actually increases your energy. God never meant for you to go through life exhausted. When you’re too tired to love others well, take a good look at how much you’re resting, what you’re eating, and how often you exercise. Then make better—and often more difficult—choices to take care of yourself. You and those you love will only benefit in the long run. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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