Loving God is for Good

We often hear quoted Romans 8:28, "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God..."

But it just struck me, love is in there.

Are you loving God, so that all things will work together for good? Perhaps it is not for you or your plan, but it is for good.

Do you want good? Then, love GOD.

Know God, know love

"...knowledge of God gives love, and knowledge of self gives humility." Oh yes, another Mother Teresa quote (page 129, The Joy in Loving)

In other words: Know God, know love. Know self, know humility.

We should strive to know both, and who we are in relation to the facts and the implications.

Humility is good, it helps us know God and to love others.

Love to know love

"I love in order that I may love." St. Bernard of Clairvaux

How do you love? Count the ways. Figure out the pattern. I'll bet you can't.

St. Bernard had a method: Love in order to know love. Love in order that you will feel love.

Love in order that you may show love. Love begets love. Love's seed is within itself. We must love so we will know more of love and so love will have a bigger part of us. Love is the pattern for love. There's no other way, but to love.

Receiving Love

As my niece pointed out, love is not only giving (see Post dated January 27), but it is also in the receiving. Are you willing to receive the love that is given to you? Love if given, needs to be accepted. Sometimes that is the hardest part, receiving. I am a giver by nature, so it's hard for me to receive. But, I must submit to receiving what God has so freely given me...the pain and the joy. Admonish yourself when you refuse to receive His blessing. His greatest blessing is love.

Love is Giving

"Love is not getting but giving." Henry Van Dyke

I know we think the opposite. Love is getting and getting and getting more. It's limitless. We certainly don't want to be giving and giving and giving on end. That wears us out. But, the truth be known: Love is giving, all the time, in all kinds of ways, at mostly inconvenient times. When we realize that, it will make giving a lot easier. Expect to give. Desire to give. Experience the joy of giving, by giving love.

Your Assignment: LOVE

"Love is not the answer. Love is the assignment." Martin Luther King

Your assignment today, should you choose to accept it is to love.

That's all you have to do.

All other assignments come from that one alone.

So, whatever you are doing, whatever your job, your main priority is to love.

Don't forget nor neglect your assignment. It cannot be delegated. It cannot be postponed.

God loves Righteousness

Psalm 11:7 says, "For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness."

If God loves righteousness, we should do a couple of things:

1. We should love righteousness

2. We should be righteous, so He will love us.

How's that? Just 2 things: love righteousness and be righteous.

That's your goal today.

Judged by Love

The Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross from the 16th Century said that at the end of life, "we will be judged on love alone."

Imagine that, being judged by your love, not your position, your power, your money, your children, or anything else, but how you encountered all those things with love or without.

All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

It's a sobering thought: judged by love. But, if that's the case, we better watch how we love, God is!

Keeping it Real

As I was pondering what words of advice to give a newly marrying couple, it hit me, the only thing that can keep a marriage together is a real, authentic love.

First of all, your love must be based on The Rock, a real solid bedrock, not superficial views of love and marriage.

Second of all, you must work to keep your love real and connected. By that I mean, work on keeping the not-real out of your relationship. "Dust" the things that settle on your relationship, that should be removed. "Weed" the roots of bitterness or anything else that can take choke your relating. To keep it real, you have to be real- honest. You have to relate in real and meaningful ways.

Lastly, delight in your real love and relationship! Take the time to delight in each other with hearts of joy and thankfulness.

Love is Peace

"All works of love are works of peace."

(Mother Teresa, page 93, The Joy in Loving)

Make peace today. Give love.

Make peace with others. Give peace to the world.

Peace and love go together. If there is peace, there is love. If there is love, there is peace.

Mother Teresa went on to say, "Unless we are full of God, we cannot give that love, we cannot give that peace to others and we will not have peace in the world."

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with us - loving.

Love is Powerful

Mother Teresa asked:

"Do we believe that God's love is infinitely more powerful, His mercy more tender than the evil of sin, than all the hatred, conflicts and tensions that are dividing the world?

Than the most powerful bombs and guns ever made by human hands and minds?"

(page 77, The Joy in Loving)

How powerful do you believe love is? Do you give it the respect it deserves?

If God is love, then love is God (like). It's the most powerful thing you can ever encounter. Give someone that encounter today, as you experience it's mighty power.

Always Learning and Sacrificing

Kevin Lucia has concluded: "Love's lessons are never over, nor are we ever done making sacrifices." [Love is a Verb, p. 75]

Does that discourage you or excite you?

We're never through with learning. My 79 year old Mom said she was learning to keep her mouth closed. I'm still learning that lesson too. Maybe we don't learn, maybe we have to keep learning, maybe we are hard headed! Maybe there are always things we can learn. There is just too much information to have acquired it all.

The same is true with sacrifices. Think of a parent. They may think when the child grows up, their sacrifices are over. They will be disappointed, as they continue to sacrifice in all kinds of ways, either for their children, or for other people or circumstances in their life.

God's not through with us. We're not through with our life lessons or sacrificial loving acts.

Be encouraged.

Love is Building

"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." That's what I Corinthians 8:1 (NIV) says.

How is love building you up today?

How are you helping to build others up today?

The Amplified version reads "love (affection and goodwill and benevolence) edifies and builds up and encourages one to grow (to his full stature)." That's a great rendering.

The Greek word there is really active, building, building upon. It's an active process of building upon what foundation has been laid. It's a building process. Like any building process, build on a strong foundation (GOD) and build properly everyday to have any building that will last.

Love's Redemptive Power

"Love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals...There's something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive." Martin Luther King, Jr.

How's your responsibility going?

How are you doing with your responsibility to love?

Are you taking it seriously?

Are you evading it?

Are you denying it?

It's your responsibility, no one else's.

It's your job, you can't delegate it.

It's your tasks, you can't deny it.

Pick up your responsibility today, with joy and a renewed sense of urgency and vigor!

I Corinthians 7

Each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called them... (verse 17)

Each one, as responsible to God, should remain the situation GOD called them to (verse 24)

Love, it is a flower

In the song, The Rose, love is described as a flower, "and you it's only seed." Isn't that a great depiction? The seed of love is in us. Like Prego spghetti sauce, "it's in there." We just need to let the seed grow and blossom in us. Love can only grow through us. It's a beautiful thing.

Watch the divine Ms. Bette Midler sing The Rose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR6okRuOLc8

Love like a hurricane?

Listening to the radio, I heard the David Crowder Band sing a song, How He Loves. I was struck by their depiction of love and God. They describe God's love "like a hurricane," and ourselves' like "a tree." Picture a tree in the midst of a hurricane. God's love is overcoming like a hurricane. There's nothing we can do to the wind. That sounds like Job, doesn't it? After all, the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38:1). Psalm 66:5 says, "He is awesome in His doing toward the sons (and daughters!) of God. Be swept away today by something bigger, God. Be bent, like a tree, in His love toward Him and His people.

Love is the Aim

"Let love be your greatest aim." That's how The Living Bible reads for I Corinthians 14:1.

It doesn't say build the biggest business. It doesn't say aim for the moon. It makes love the bull's eye. The center of the target that we are to aim at, is love.

How is love at the center of what you are aiming for today?

How can it permeate the concentric circles of your life?

Aim today, not for more money or beauty or recognition, but for love.

Love & Tend

When Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" (John 21:16)

After Peter said yes, Jesus' response was, "Tend my sheep."

There is a relationship between then between loving someone and "tending" to them.

If you love, then you will tend.

You will give them attention, you will attend to them.

The meaning is also interpreted as 'feed.'

This has a meaning of feeding or providing for their needs.

Look around you today and see how you can love others by providing for their needs, and tending to them.

Love in Truth

In the start of 3rd John, the writer addresses Gaius, "whom I love in truth."

It got me to thinking....who do I love in truth?

How do I love anyone truthfully?

How do you love "in truth"?

I want to live in the truth and love in the truth.

So, help me God!

Pray then Love

Mother Teresa said, "Let us pray for each other, for this is the best way to love one another."

Let us take time today to pray for each other, so we can love each other better.

Perhaps we should start with prayer, and the love will flow.

First, pray. Second, love.

Connect to the Divine, then extend divine love.

Are you willing to Love?

Gary Chapman in his book, Love is a Verb, said, "Perhaps one of the keys to finding an enduring affection is just to be willing..." (page 56).

How willing are you to love today?

How willing are you to be vulnerable?

How willing are you to give of yourself, to think more highly of 'them' than yourself?

Today, just be willing to love, be open.

From "love it" to "lose it"

In one split moment, I can go from utter love to loosing it. How about you?

Can your peace be pierced in a flash? How can we be so fickle?

How can our love and/or peace be so fleeting, so unstable?

Anything can trigger us. Just recall the next time something explodes inside,

we are called to love. It's a discipline. It's a choice.

Lose it in love, not anger.

Readiness for Responsibility

"Action springs not from thought, but from readiness for responsibility."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I think this quote captures what I am trying to expound upon in this blog. We may think thoughts (of love or otherwise), but how ready are we to act? How prepared are we for the responsibilities we have? I think understanding our responsibility (to love or otherwise) should result in action. I hope action in love. Our responsibility should make us eager and willing to do what we need to do. What do you need to do today?

Confound Your Enemies, Delight Your Friends

Homer wrote:

"There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends."

What a great picture of what we can do by simply being in a God honoring, loving relationship. A place where one honors the other, and God, and even themself. You do this when you live in a relationship that looks up and looks out. People will be mystified. Others will be delighted. You don't know which reaction you'll get, but you'll be sure to be noticed, because it's a rarity.

Be that rare relationship. Be one in love ~ with God, life, and all God's people.

Love is Long(ing)

Whom you love, you long for - according to Philippians 4:1.

So, the question is who/what do you long for?

Then ask, who do I love, and do I long for them?

If you can uncover your longings, you will reveal your loves.

Long for the right things, the right people.

Then your longings will be satisfied.

Examples of love

We're just examples. Have you ever thought about that?

We're just examples for the next person who is watching.

Or the next generation as they learn from our example.

They can learn good things, and they can see from the bad things, they don't want to repeat it.

You're just another example. Some will notice, and others won't. Some will repeat, and others won't. You're job is just to be the example: Love someone today with certainty that someone is watching ~ if only it is God.

Make Others Happy

"We can make others happy by loving our spouses well." That's what Gary Thomas said that hit me in his book, Devotions for a Sacred Marriage. It hit me as true, because when I see others love their spouse, or in loving relationships, it sure makes me happy. He went on to say, "we can control how we love - and how we love can bring great happiness to others." (page 96)

I think this is what I am saying too with stressing our responsibility to love. We have a responsibility to love, because it honors others, and it brings joy to other people, not only to the one we love, but to those around it who observe it and are subsequently or peripherally blessed.

Resolve to Love

The New Year is a great time for resolutions. Resolutions are defined as resolving power, or the outcome of a decision. The #1 New Year's resolution is to quit smoking, followed by #2 to lose weight. But, the statistics tell us 90% of people give up on their resolutions within a few weeks.

Resolve today to love like you've never loved before.

Resolve today to love in new and fresh ways.

Resolve today to commit your life, and your new year, to loving.

Newness

Romans 6:4 says, we should "walk in newness of life."

Romans 7:6 says, we should "serve in newness of spirit..."

Revelations 21:5 says, [Christ] "makes all things new."

Walk in that newness today into that new year.

Serve in a new spirit today and take that spirit with you into the new year.

Christ has made all things new. Your love can be renewed in this new year, with a new spirit so you can walk and serve in love in new ways. Just look for them.