“What is love? Baby don’t hurt me no more….”

The famous words from the song “What Is Love” by Haddaway are featured on the famous Will Ferrel movie, Night at the Roxbury. No, I am not going to talk about that, but that is just what comes to mind when I think of that phrase. But for real,What Is Love???

Love has seemed to be a common theme for me this semester, ever since I read the book Love Does by Bob Goff, which I mentioned in a post earlier this year. But I have been thinking a lot about what it means to love others and how do we do that on a day to day basis. Last night in my devotions I read from 1 John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” 

We are called to love because God first loved us. What a great example of love! It is such a challenge in my day to day life to  learn to love others. Yes, this sounds cliché, but it in all seriousness, truly loving others is something that I hear all the time but never really understand how to put into action.

I think a good first step is learning to appreciate the good in others instead of focusing on their flaws. When life gets busy for me, it becomes much easier to become frustrated with people because in all honesty, people can be annoying. But I have found the most successful people in life find ways to ignore the annoying aspects of people and love the good.

Is there a greater act of grace in all of history than the act of Christ laying his life down for us? Grace also ties into to this whole idea of loving others. We are all human and humans make mistakes. It is important to keep in mind that when loving people.

I think sometimes we get wrapped up in the comfort that God shows us grace but are we showing grace in our lives? I truly desire for my life to reflect grace even though there are times when that does not happen.

The verse resolves with this command: “And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”  What a challenging verse!

Live A Life Of Love

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This past week, I have been reflecting on the love of Christ.  The Bible says “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (NIV Deuteronomy 6:4-5) From reading that passage of Scripture, I have realized over the years that there is not love like the love of Christ. His love for us exceeds any and everything that we could imagine or think. It is so crucial to understand how much we are loved. We are able to love because Christ FIRST loved us. Knowing that, we can conquer the world. Love puts you in a position to push through any trial and tribulation that might try and come your way. My prayer for this week has been for Christ to continue to let me love as he loved me. That love that Christ has blessed us with is not just for our own benefit  it is for the purpose of spreading His love to others who may not be aware of it. I am thankful for the ability to love my brothers and sisters in Christ. Lets lead with a spirit of Love!

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We all know the “love verse” well. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 tells us what true love is. It helps us to understand God better since He is Love. I have begun a study of this verse with my girls on my floor for Bible study. Each week we are going to look at one aspect of the love verse; one adjective that the love verse uses to describe true love. We will then look at a story in the Bible that exemplifies that adjective of love. This will help us to fully understand what true love really is and stop seeing it as just a part of the verse that is read at weddings and in church. I want to share our studies with you all.

The first part of the love verse is patient. Love is patient. A story that exemplifies patient love is that of the prodigal son. Luke 15:11-32 talks about a son who takes his inheritance and leaves home. He loses all his money living a “wild” life and then comes home begging to be a servant to his father. Instead of accepting that offer, the father wraps his arms around his son, kisses him, and throws him a party to celebrate his return.

That is patient love. The father had so many chances to just forget about his son and then not accept him when he came back, but instead he accepted his son with open arms, like Christ accepts sinners. Look at these parallels:

1. The father is basically told that he should be dead. That is the only way the son could get the inheritance. Jesus had to die for us to get our inheritance, grace. Both of these occurrences should cause people to have non-patient love, but that is not the case.

2. The son goes out and squanders his money. He is left broke and alone in a harsh world. We, as sinners, go out into the world and squander our lives by sinning and turning from God. This, again, should warrant non-patient love, but it did not.

3. The father accepted his son back with patient love, open arms, and a celebration. Christ accepts us sinners with patient love, open arms, and a celebration.

Patient love is the love that endures everything. It waits for the person to turn around and run back. It is one of the hardest loves to have all the time, but it is so rewarding when it is acquired.

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My daily Bible reading.

In my daily reading of the Bible I came across Romans 13:10, which says, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor, wow. This really gets me thinking. Our neighbor is anyone we come in contact with, even if we don’t like them. If we truly have love within us, we won’t do wrong to the annoyingly rude waiter. If we truly have love within, we won’t hide our roommate’s toothbrush because they took one of our last vanilla Cokes from the fridge.

This passage gave me a huge gut check. I realized that if I want to be filled Christ’s love, I need to treat others with complete respect. In today’s world it is not a common thing to see people treat others with complete respect despite their differences. As the body of Christ we must not hurt or wrong others. We are called to be the salt and light of the world, not the the cause for injury and hurt. I have no right to be carrier of God’s love if I do not become intentional about not hurting others. If we truly have love, its time we step up and show it.

Thanks for Reading,

Miles

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We all know that this is February. This is the month of Valentine’s day. It is crucial that we not only show love just on that specific day, but every day. The amount of love and compassion that Jesus shows to us daily should be enough to make us strive to be like Him and do the same. There are multiple ways for us to show love to our classmates, friends and teachers as we go throughout the day. Opening up a door, a smile, and even being attentive and showing respect to our professors are all ways that we can practice and show love. Romans 13:8 says; “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” If Christ can think enough of us to love us despite ourselves, we should make it our obligation to do the same. John 3:16 says; “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. The reality of it all is that God loves us and it’s not because of anything that we’ve done but He loves us unconditionally. In our effort to be more like Him we should try and love our neighbor unconditionally and be excepting of everyone.

So show some love today, tomorrow, always, and forever!!! =)

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My sister came home to visit.

There is one fact that inevitably comes true as we age, and the older we get, the more we must accept this fact.  In our youth, there is a tendency to take for granted the importance of family, and once we reach that time in life when family is not always together, it is then that we feel the impact of distance.

Now that a majority of my siblings are out of the house we grew up in, I can relate to a family separated by physical distance. I love my family, and always have, but distance prevents the possibility of daily communication. So, when even part of the family makes an appearance, it is special.

This past week, my older sister and brother-in-law found an opportunity to come from Muncie, Indiana, to Chelsea, Michigan. Around four hours from home, Rachel and Jacob Hibbard had just enough days off work to visit their family. To me, this was a special couple of days, especially since time has made a change in how often I see my family.

The joys of seeing family throughout life is a treasure, and as we grow older, the treasure of seeing family becomes more rare and more rewarding. When you have the chance to be with family, treasure it with all of your heart, because eventually being with family will not be as frequent.

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