How you Love is Who you are

"Love- is not something, first of all, that we do. Love is who we are."
"Love is not an additive, a spiritual supplement reserved for saints, for those few consecrated to some higher purpose. Loving is of the essence of being human, the connective tissue of reality, the oxygen of life."
"Love is the oxygen that sustains the universe, the glue cohering the universe, the fire impassioning the universe. Love calls us - claims us - to responsibility, engagement, and mutuality." (page 69, The Beautiful Risk, James H. Olthuis)

I love how Olthuis ties love with responsibility. What a huge responsibility it is.

Acting as Love's Agent

"God is love, and humans are made in God's image. Love, then, is who we are - love's agents.
God is the giver, we are the gifted, love is the gift. God is the caller, we are the called, love is the calling." (page 68, The Beautiful Risk, James H. Oltuis)

Othuis says Emmanuel Levinas called "the beautiful risk" as the ability "to live openly in the present as love's agents..." (page 74, IBID)

Think of yourself as an agent for love. Represent 'him/her' well. Act on their behalf.

Love & Freedom

Saint Augustine is famous for his line: "Love, and do what you will."

Could anything be more simple and profound than that?
Put love first, and everything else will work out.
Love is the primordial thing.
If we are loving, what we do after that, will be good.

Living & Loving

"You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love." Henry Drummond

Live today: Love.
Love today: then you will have really lived.

Isn't it exciting? Living and Loving are inextricably bound together.

Dwelling in God's Love

"We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:16). David Wilkerson says, "In short, if we "dwell in God's love," we're keeping ourselves in God."

The word dwell here means "to stay in a state of expectancy." In other words, David Wilkerson says, "God wants us to expect his love to be renewed in us every day."

http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/devotions/2010/know-believe-and-keep-trusting-in-his-love

Everlasting Love with an Everlasting Power

"...God is loving us with an everlasting love, which is backed by an everlasting power." William Barclay

Everlasting love with an everlasting power. There's only one place, there's only one source.

Genuine Love

Romans 12:9 and 10 teaches us to not "pretend love", but to "really love", "genuinely." (New Living Translation)

What a challenge. Discard pretend love. Throw out any love that is not genuine, certified-by-God, bonafide love! You know the difference, and so do they!

Small Love, Great Fears

Martin Luther's 14th Theses said in part: "the smaller the love, the greater the fear."

Do you have fear? Consider your love. Maybe the issue is not how big the problem is, but how small your love is.

Make sure your love is greater than your fear.

How Love Grows

Martin Luther's 44th Thesis reads: "Because love grows by works of love, man thereby becomes better."

Love grows as we work love. As our love grows, we become better people. Then, we will become better couples, and then better families, then better neighborhoods, then better communities, then better...Oh, you get the picture!

Love & Overcoming

David Wilkerson said: "Understanding the love of God is the secret to an overcoming life. Multitudes grow spiritually cold and lazy because they're ignorant of the Lord's love for them. They don't know that their greatest weapon against Satan's attacks is to be fully convinced of God's love for them." (http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/devotions/2010/the-revelation-of-gods-love)

Be convinced and convicted today of God's love for you.

It's the best thing you've got going for you, to overcome any obstacle in life.

Doubt or Failure

David Wilkerson wrote: "The Bible is filled with the truth of God's love. But at times I allow myself to wonder how the Lord could ever love me. It's not that I doubt his love; it's more a failure on my part to keep myself in the knowledge and assurance of his love to me." (http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/devotions/2010/the-revelation-of-gods-love)

Living with the assurance of God's love makes all the difference in how we live and treat others.

Be convinced and convicted today of God's eternal and perfect love and care for you.

Love is Moving

"Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your soul" Kahlil Gibran

What a picture of love flowing like a roaring sea, between the shores of our soul.

Nothing can stop the waves of love. It's momentum is greater than us. Stand in awe.

Does Your Love Show?

"They do not love that do not show their love." William Shakespeare

How does your love show?

If your love does not show, you must ask where it is.

Discover where it is, and rediscover the love in you and around you.

And let your love show. Or as the Bellamy Brothers sing, "Let Your Love Flow."

Bellamy Brothers - Let Your Love Flow 3 min - Apr 8, 2009 Uploaded by sirhcnehcsig www.youtube.com

Love & Work

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." Confucius

Will Rogers said, "If you want to be successful, it's just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing."

Love & Courage

"Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment." Napolean Bonaparte

Nourish your life today, have hope.

Then, with hope you can have courage...to love!

Traveling With Love

Ernest Hemingway said, "Never go on trips with anyone you do not love." This from a man who had traveled the world. He might have some wisdom to offer us.

We leave today for a trip with my Mother. We are following Hemingway's advice.

We are traveling with people we love. May our love as we travel make the road kinder and the memories sweeter.

Love & Living

"By identifying the greatest commandment as loving God with all we are , Jesus reinforces this message by calling us to vigorous, creative, full-throttled living." Carolyn James said this, and it challenges me.

If loving is the most important thing we do, then we need to live "full-throttle" as Carolyn said. We need to live to the hilt. We need to be fully present, fully engaged. We need all of us living out and pouring out. Love requires us all to give our all.

Rejoice in Your Love

"I will be glad and rejoice in your love..." Psalm 31:7

How are you rejoicing in love today?

How is your gladness evident?

Have you counted your blessings lately?

Be glad. Rejoice. LOVE!

Let Your Love Show

"...I do not conceal your love and your truth..." Psalm 40:10

How do you hide God's truth? How do you deny God's love?

Question your actions and intentions and examine whether you are not living out fully and truthfully all the truths and love you have found in God, that God has shown you.

Don't hide your light as Jesus explained in Matthew 5:15.

Does Love Follow You?

"Surely, goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Psalm 23:6

What an assurance. Look for the love that is following you. And, while you're looking, notice:

"The Lord Himself goes before you, and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deuteronomy 31:8)

So, if God goes before you, and love follows you...it's going to be good!

Love & Comfort

"Love opens the door for comfort. Where there is love, there is comfort." Gray said this and it's truth hit me. Since it's his birthday I celebrate today. I celebrate this truth. I thank God for the comfort He has given me through him. I thank God for opening a door I had closed. I have been comforted. Be comforted: Love, and accept love.

Difficult Can Be Good

"It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get." Confucius

What's easy, may not be best.
Sometimes, the harder is the easiest (best) in the long run.

Sometimes, making a choice to make it harder on you, will be the best thing you ever did.

Love may be difficult, but it is worth it. You're worth it. Learn to love.

How You Respond

"Let His greater love shape your response to every disappointment and to every fearful thought."

(Ann Spangler, Praying the Names of Jesus, p. 219)

What a grand goal. What a great desire.

Let His love, that is greater than anything we can perceive, shape our very responses.

It will change our lives.

The Remedy for Love

"There is no remedy for love but to love more." Henry David Thoreau

Do you need a remedy to the situation you are in?
Love more. Love will last forever(I Corinthians 13:8) as the NLT renders its. Or, love never fails as the NIV translates it.

The only answer to love, is to love. The only thing that will rectify the situation, is to love.

We all need more love.

Tools for the Trade

"Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it." Benjamin Franklin

How is your love being sharpened or strengthened today?

Let any absence sharpen your love.

Let any presence strengthen your love.

Either way, your love will be enhanced.

A Life Without Love?

"Life without love is like a tree without blossoms." Kahlil Gibran

How barren are you?

How frozen are you?

Blossoms on a tree are so gracious and gorgeous.

They invite us. They ask us to pause and notice their grandeur.

They are a gift to the beholder.

Let your love be a blossom of beauty today.

Your Source for Love

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source."

Anais Nin

If the source of your love is you, you will run out.

If the source of your love is Love Himself, God, it will never run out.

It will never cease to amaze you.

It will never cease to delight you - and others.

It will never case.

"Love never ends." I Corinthians 13:8 (NRSV)

Love as a Teacher

"Love is a better teacher than duty." Albert Einstein

Do you learn from duty or guilt? If so, try a better teacher: LOVE.

Love teaches us true life lessons everyday that change our lives, and those of others.

Love is a kinder teacher. Love is a patient teacher. Love teaches us the greater lessons of life.

Are you learning from Love?

Work & Love

"Work is love made visible." Kahlil Gibran

I'd bet that what you love, you work on/with/for.

If I knew your work, would I know your love?

Does your work fulfill you or deplete you?

If your work is a way of showing your love, it should enrapture you and release you.

Stick With Love

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Consider how great a burden it is to carry hate around with you.

Now consider the pleasure and joy of "sticking with love."

Stick with love. Lighten your load.