Now here is what I am up to in this part of my challenge…
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31 NIV)
Now why did I just add that here? “Love your neighbor as yourself”
So how can I love my neighbor, IF I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO LOVE OTHERS…
I have completed this challenge… Now here is what happened in the last few days…
Day 27 – Love encourages…
Guard my soul and deliver me; do not let me be ashamed, for I take refuge in You. (Psalm 25:20 NASB)
If love encourages, What or who does it encourage?
Does it encourage one entity to be the superior?
Wait… Love does not have anything other than equality, protection and being loved in mind… But then it also encourages this…
What things today can we say is not love?
Racism – Where one race is superior to another… no equality…
Sexism – Where one gender is seen as superior to another… no equality…
Classism – Where one social class is higher than another… no equality…
Ableism – Where ones with no disability is regard as higher than those who have disabilities… no equality…
But what else?
“Instead of putting your mate in a position to rebel, love teaches you to give them room to be themselves.” – The Love Dare
Wait… Love gives room to be yourself? Interesting? Does this mean most Christians may have it backward… Instead of encouraging, we tend to judge someone for being different…
Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble (Isaiah 35:3 NASB)
Have you seen someone exhausted lately? They needed your encouragement…
Encourage one another and build up one another. . . . Encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone (1 Thessalonians 5:11, 1 Thessalonians 5:14 )
Have you set unrealistic goals in your own life? Things that you know you will fail, yet you still strive for it? It is time to let go of this…
It is time to rather build ourselves up, rather than to degrade ourselves with unrealistic goals…
Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. (Hebrews 10:24 NASB)
Day 28 – Love makes sacrifices…
He laid down His life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 John 3:16 HCSB)
Wait… Why is this the picture for “Love makes sacrifices”?
First it represents the greatest sacrifice ever made to proof love…
Now why would God sacrifice Someone so dear to Him to show His love to us?
The bigger question is: Why would that same God expect that same type of sacrifice from Abraham (Genesis 22)?
Wait… God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son… Yes… However this was no ordinary sacrifice… He had to put all his trust in God to provide an escape of this harsh sacrifice…(Which God did)
Why sacrifices? What does it prove if you sacrifice something for another?
Lets look at the meaning of the word sacrifice…
An act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy (lexico.com)
Lets think about this… Abraham has a son… After a 100 years and many promises of a nation to be birthed from him… He has one son… This one son is important to him… Well if Abraham is the father of nations and he has only one son… And his wife being of an age where she is not likely to birth more children…
Now think about this from that perspective the father of nations, has one son… This would mean that this son will have to birth nations… And God asks Abraham to sacrifice the only way for his bloodline will become nations… This, to Abraham, was sacrificing his whole bloodline. Yet, Abraham knew who God was…
And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. (James 2:23 NIV)
Wait, Abraham was a friend of God… Does this mean he knew God would not let him sacrifice his son?
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. (Genesis 22:8 NIV)
He had true faith… He had no substance for his hope that it would be provided, yet he spoke it… He had only Gods word… “Sacrifice your son”…
What did this act of faith do on behalf of Abraham?
He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” (Genesis 22:12 ESV)
God have provided for him, and he proved that he loved God about all else…
This is the major principle behind sacrifice… To proof that the things we value most is not the things we put first in our life…
We would sacrifice a movie for a friend…
We would sacrifice relaxation, to intercede for someone in need…
We sacrifice sports to hang out with God…
These are sacrifices that are worth making… It does seem hard, in some cases, yet it is worth it…
Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2 NASB)
Day 29 – Love’s motivation…
rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, (Ephesians 6:7 ESV)
Quick question…. Why do you live?
Now do not get me wrong… What is the motivation by getting up in the morning?
Is it to see friends? To make money? To provide for a family?
Or maybe you are like me… I just get up because I have to…
But what keeps you standing up?
What if something happens that hits your life upside down, how would you go on then?
Now these are questions to help you start thinking as we move on to the next part… They may also help you understand more as we go on…
When someone approaches me and mentions what they want to do for the rest of their lives, my first question is:
“Why do you want to do this? Is it something you love to do?“
Yeah, this question seems to be a doomsday weapon, yet it is more or less the reason why I am still getting up… If I hated what I did, I would not even have gotten up in the morning…
But why all of this?
What is your motivation? Why do you love?
According to the Bible…
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV)
Wait…. What does this have to do with anything… about 2 weeks ago I posted that love is impossible without God…
Now… We have to love for the glory of God…
Seems tough right…
Work
Do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men (Colossians 3:23 NASB)
Service
Obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord (Colossians 3:22 NASB)
Everything
whatever you do . . . knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve (Colossians 3:23–24 NASB)
Marriage
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord (Colossians 3:18 NASB)
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25 NASB)
This all seem to show to one crucial part… DO it as for the Lord…. WOW, NO MORE MAN-PLEASING… This is a relieve…
But how do we love as to the Lord?
We can only love this way, when God is allowed to use us in the way he sees fit…
What is the reason you sacrifice, AND HOW DO YOU SACRIFICE?
According to Ephesians 6:7, we should always have a good attitude…
Now before you jump to a conclusion about impossible… If you are obedient to God, you are already on the right track… He will teach you His way and His motivations… Then you will be able to love with a good attitude… Not everything is always good, yet we could make the best of everything…
“Love that has God as its primary focus is unlimited in the heights it can attain.” – The Love Dare
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15 NASB)
Day 30 – Love brings unity…
Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. (John 17:11 NASB)
What is unity?
“the state of being united or joined as a whole.” (lexico.com)
Lets thinks about it for a second…
An orange is a unity of its slices…
Now an egg is a unity of the shell, the egg white and the egg yolk…
Here is where this comes in… In a natural state, you will never find a egg yolk in a nest, nor will you find a orange slice hanging on a tree…
This is the same with us… We are body, soul and Spirit…
The body – is the flesh and bones that make it possible to be moving around
The soul – is the emotions, intellect and reasoning…
The Spirit – is the part which actually makes us alive…
Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” (Genesis 6:3 NIV)
“From the very beginning of time, we see His unity at work through the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Father is there, creating the heavens and the earth. The Spirit is “moving over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). And the Son, who is “the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3), joins in speaking the world into existence. “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Us. Our.” – The Love Dare
God, who is three parts to make a whole, has unity among the different entities…
One mind… Now I am not saying that we should go all out and just jump to say yes to everything… Sometimes there will be differences… Those should be handled and a unity can then be found so that all entities are in one accord…
Have you ever struggled finding peace about some decision? Maybe this is a sign of disunity in yourself… Some part of you wants it, some other part does not….
What if I say… God brings a twist to things here… Think of your friendships…
Have you fought with a close friend lately? Why was it? And have you asked God for His side of the story?
Does He want fighting? Is fighting a sign of unity? Not as far as I know…
Now fighting is normal, and will at some point happen, yet if it is not dealt with, and corrected, it will spiral out of control and relationships will be hurt… Avoiding a problem does not bring healing, dealing with it does… Some times it might mean you have to meet the friend and talk through everything… And get to the point where the friendship is restored and stronger than before… Yet, not dealing with it may cause the end of a friendship which you might not want to lose…
Think about your body… If you step on a thorn, it is all body parts on deck to get pressure of the foot and that thorn out of your foot…
Every relationship should be like that… If a problem arises, jump into action and sort it out… Some times it would be better to let go of someone who just hurts you, yet go make peace and if it comes to a split in the friendship, it is fine… There is a season for many things, sometimes also friendships…
The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! (Deuteronomy 6:4 NASB)
God bless… Love remains the greatest…
I would like to apologize for the lateness of this post… I was on a camp over the past weekend which caused that I was dead tired for the last couple of days… This is even the latest I am awake since the camp…