It's All About Love!

Good day dear friends. Our text comes from 1 John 3: 16 This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.17 If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear. 18 My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. 19 This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. 20 It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. 21 And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! 22We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him. 23 Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. 24 As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us. (The Message) Last night it was my honor and privilege to be the master of ceremonies for the annual Wesley Community Center banquet. We were celebrating 70 years of faithful ministry to the communities of Robstown and Corpus Christi. It started when some concerned church women saw the needs of the poor in their area and decided to do something about it. I opened with a statement about Jesus' having said, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them," and I said, "Jesus also meant to say, 'Where two or three women are gathered in my name, watch out!" Love serves no purpose if it is not shared nor lived out. That's what this passage is saying. In Christ we saw ultimate LOVE lived out. Love is meant to be shared and love means having to share with others from your heart, your life, your treasures and resources. Rick Warren says, "The one who dies rich, sins!" To me that means the one who has amassed a fortune but does not have enough love to share it with others is living a sinful life. It is a joy to share and give. It is a joy to give of our lives to others. When we become others-centered, the world ceases to revolve around us and the world becomes better. It is said that "idleness is the devil's workshop," I say selfishness is the devil's factory. Thoughtfulness and sacrifice is God's harvest ground. Where are you and what are you doing? PRAYER: Loving God, may today be a day in which I give of myself and of the great love You have shared with us. May we seek to be all about love, for You and for Yours. I pray this in Christ Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.