Love Is…
By Melisa Manampiring, Indonesia
Love is a word that we often hear. Everyone has experienced it. Love is a wonderful thing and everyone wants to love and be loved.
Love is a part of human life. People cannot live without love. Each of us needs relationships with other people, with friends, family, and that special boy or girl. We were all created that way.
But love is often misunderstood. Some people think that love is all about receiving, not giving. Others think that love is about feeling happiness all the time.
True love is different.
Love isn’t always effortless and natural. Love doesn’t mean that there are no tough times. Instead, it means holding on to a commitment to care for someone in spite of those hard times.
Love is about giving what we can of ourselves when we see the needs of others, even if the person refuses to be grateful or to respond to us.
Love often requires sacrifice.
Sacrificial love was shown two thousand years ago, when Jesus Christ died on the cross. “For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Love from God is everlasting. It doesn’t depend on conditions for it to take root and grow.
True love redeems. It is given despite the other person’s faults and weaknesses, but works to help him or her out of them. “… God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8).
Love is the most beautiful grace that God has given to us. It is not an emotion dependent on whether we like or dislike a person. Love is action—a deliberate and unconditional working towards what is best for another person.
May the Lord lead your hearts
into a full understanding and expression
of the love of God and the patient endurance
that comes from Christ.
2 Thessalonians 3:5
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Your God is coming (v.4).
READ: Isaiah 35:4-10
Recently, two pygmy sperm whales lay stranded near a New Zealand beach. Though volunteers, led by conversation officer Malcolm Smith, worked tirelessly, they couldn’t coax the beached whales back out into the open water. Just as they were about to surrender hope, a local bottlenose dolphin named Moko arrived, made a few shrill noises toward the whales—and immediately led them into the sea. “I don’t speak whale, and I don’t speak dolphin,” Malcolm said, “but there was obviously something that went on . . . [Moko] did what we had failed to do.”
Each of us responds to our anxiety and distress uniquely. Some of us go into feverish activity, attempting to scratch a way forward. Some of us turn silent or depressed, overwhelmed with a sense that our efforts will all be futile. However, each of us share the same core need: for someone to approach us where we are and to know how to help us.
Since we are helpless on our own, the prophet Isaiah’s instruction may seem cold. “Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, and do not fear’ ” (v.4). Don’t these words strike you as something odd to say to a person rung out with fear? Don’t be afraid. Or to a worrier: Don’t worry. Or to one overcome with loneliness: Don’t be lonely.
Far from flat admonitions to buck up and change their behavior, however, Isaiah was calling them to look forward, to look up and see that they were in no way alone. A divine rescue was on its way. “Be strong and do not fear,” Isaiah said, “for your God is coming . . . to save you” (v.4).
The prophet invites us out of our fear (and out of our worry and loneliness and everything gripping us) because God is here, ready and able to lead us out of our prisons. Will we follow? —Winn Collier
What in your life do you feel the most anxiety about right now? How might God be meeting you in the middle of this anxiousness?
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July 28, 2010
READ: Jeremiah 6:14-20
Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. —Jeremiah 6:16
If you’ve ever tried to fix something and failed, you’ll appreciate the sign I saw outside an automotive repair shop: We Will Fix What Your Husband Fixed. Whether the problem is the car, the plumbing, or an appliance, it’s usually better off in the hands of someone who is skilled and trustworthy.
So it is with the sin and the struggles within us that resist our efforts to mend them.
Jeremiah denounced the greedy prophets and priests of his day who “healed the hurt of [God’s] people slightly, saying ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). They could neither change themselves nor lead the people to spiritual transformation. So the Lord called the people to follow His way: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls” (v.16).
Centuries later, Jesus, the Son of God, said: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).
The parts of our lives that we have tried and failed to repair can be restored by the hand of God. Through faith in Christ, we can be made whole. —David McCasland
When God forgives, He removes the sin and restores the soul.
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