it is a natural instinct to go forward to help someone in need, to show love to the hurting/lost. yet, thats not what we always do. may times, we limit who we love and how we want to love them based on our mood, based on our past experiences, based on their actions. we often put a condition to it, limiting who, when and what we loveday 6 speaks about loving everyone as your neighbour and loving your neighbour as yourself. so... it also means loving everyone as yourself. now now now... for some, this may be a tall order.. if one loves himself by going out for good food.. loving everyone as yourself would mean bringing everyone out for good food. O.O or if one loves himself by looking the mirror and telling himself how good looking he is.. loving everyone as yourself would mean praising everyone on their good looks (even if you dun think they deserve it) =.= [ok.. not literally..]
it is so easy for us to limit how much we love others.. and the chapter metioned 2 reasons why we limit ourselves. (1) our differences (2) our fears
(1) we limit our love because of our differences
Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in his sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
- Clare Herbert Woolston
God loves us all. despite our differences. even as the song says, red and yellow, black and white ALL of us are precious in HIS sight.. it doesn't say God only loves peter or josh or shuyin or jasper or leemun or rachel or jon.. it says ALL. many times, it is our differences that stands in our way to have that intimate relationship with our friends, with family, with God. we need to learn to put aside our differences, and learn how to love each other.All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in his sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
- Clare Herbert Woolston
let me share a personal experience with you.. while working at subway, in the evening, there will always be this group of people that comes in. what annoys me most is their consistent demands for extra ingredients, so each time i serve them it would not be with a smile on my face and sometimes i'm even rude, and i could see i was influencing the way my collegues serve them as well.. one day, i had a sudden realisation about how i haven't been loving them as God did. I wasn't.
of course now, i try my best to love them. it says "love your neighbour as yourself". No, it was not an easy thing to do, it did not make them any more lovable but i kept reminding myself about God's commandment for me, and how He loves them too. each time we try to love with our own human strength, we loose track of His abundant love and grace. we fall back on our own human's perception of Love.
Let us really express His kind of love in our lives!
(2) we limit our love because of our fears
it is a risk to love. and love is the greatest risk you will ever take.
nothing in this life is guaranteed. [except for 1 thing. which i will reveal further down.] every action we take will be a risk. including love. many times, we are afraid of rejection, afraid of being hurt afraid of people laughing at us.
its time you go back to the days where you were in primary school, after a "big fight" with your best friend, you go back to our best friend and start talking and some how, you're best of friends again! (ok maybe only girls do that. i'm not sure about guys) yes, it maybe childish. but one thing we can learn is that we were not afraid to go back and make friends again. not afraid of others laughing at us or isolating us. lets not be afraid to take risks.
life is all about risk. and only 1 thing is guaranteed. that is God's LOVE. His perfect love. "...perfect love casts out fear..." -1 John 4:18
lets lean on His perfect LOVE as we take risks in life. even if everyone else fails you, God will never fail you.
*************************
Loving EVERYONE as your neighbour is not going to be an easy task for some of you. BUT we cannot limit our God of miracles.. all that He demands of us is for us to depend on Him for the power of LOVE, and from there to go and love others.
"I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
- Edward Everett Hale
there is something that each and everyone of us can do to love the people around us abit more. it doesn't need to be the biggest earth shaking event. it could be the smallest action that you decide to do that only God sees. YOU CAN DO SOMETHING!But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
- Edward Everett Hale
my challenge for you is to stop placing conditions and limits in your life to hinder our ability to love. lets allow God's LOVE to flow through our lives. remember: use HIS strength
I choose to Love with God's LOVE today.
How bout you?
♥ eunice
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