Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts

Friday, March 18, 2011

Genuine & Freely Given Service

After our study last night, I couldn't help but keep thinking about this one section from what we read.
This was so encouraging to me (especially after I just got finished having a hassle with my mom about who was going to wake up at midnight to help my sister take her pain killer.) Yes... I was in need of being reminded AGAIN, and thankfully my mom was there to do that.

Our Father does this for each and every one of us out of His purely divine goodness and mercy towards us.

All of our works (or actions) should be guided by one thought alone- that we may serve and benefit others in everything that is done, having nothing else before our eyes except the need and advantage of the neighbor. A true Christian life is one where faith is active in love. A Christian way of thinking is "Although I am unworthy and a condemned person, my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit on my part. God has done this in an act of free and pure mercy so that I now need nothing except faith that trusts that is true. Given such a Father - who overwhelms me with riches beyond number - why should I not freely, joyfully, with all my heart and an eager will, do things that I know are pleasing and acceptable to Him? I will therefore give myself as a Christ to my neighbor, just as Christ offered Himself to me. I will do nothing in this life except what is profitable, necessary, and life-giving for my neighbor, since through faith I have an abundance of ALL good things in Christ."

From faith flows love, and from love proceeds a joyful, willing, and free mind that serves the neighbor and takes no account of gratitude or ingratitude, praise or blame, gain or loss. As our Heavenly Father freely spent himself on us, giving all things to both the ungrateful and deserving, we freely spend ourselves and all that we have on others.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

God's Word is our life

Proverbs 4:20-27 says...
My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.

This is an excerpt from a book we have on Proverbs...
"These words, God's Word, is our life. God's Word is to be an integral part of our daily life, and not something that is limited to a special half hour of the day or reserved for formal fellowship."

Again, we look to the Word and what it says about this...

Deuteronomy 6:6-7;24
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up...And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.

We still believe this! God commands us to do these things because He loves us. We serve a jealous God. Thank you Lord!