Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 02/10/2011)

So You Say…

Proverbs 8:17 (New Living Translation)

¹⁷ “I love all who love me.
      Those who search will surely find me.

            My mom use to say anything worth having is worth working for.  It is something I often share with others and it is a part of my crazy work ethic now.  To me I take the words I Love You very seriously.  When I say I love you to anyone, it is a form of commitment that I take to heart and it is like a covenant, and a promise.  It is something that I will work to preserve, care for and guard.  I believe that love is important enough to put effort into and challenge ourselves to maintain and grow in.  But I have noticed not everyone feels that way.  Love is a loosely utilized word that often lacks the substance behind the words uttered. For many, love means saying without the doing or the maintaining.

            The Bible in Isaiah 29:13, says: “And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine.  They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.” We do God just like we do people, we say to Him, “God I love you, and God you are mine,” but when it comes down to our expression of love and our commitment to the love that we should have for Him, we are lacking in the areas of action and in devotion.  I heard someone say today that true love is giving all of you to another.  I tend to agree.  Love is sacrificial and it requires something that is uniquely ours, which is “US,” not just some of us but all of us.  It requires us to put forth some effort along with the words that we so eloquently declare.  We can say we love God, but until we are in active pursuit of Him, and we are actively in compliance with His commandments and His word, our love is lacking the substance needed to sustain the relationship and the covenant to which we have entered into. Saying that we love God and not even doing the little things, sends a message that love really does not exist, or that we are cheapening it, by our lack of actions to support the love we say we possess.

            Let us become a product of our actions.  If we say that we love, God and those God entrusts us with, let it be evident. Love does not contradict itself, love will not appear to be anything but what it is, LOVE…which is unselfish, sacrificial, caring, longsuffering, and strong, determine, nurturing, giving, and filled with mercy.  It bestows its favor and grace, and looks for nothing in return. It gives of itself without limits and it’s dedicated, and unyielding in its efforts.  Just as the love of God for us lead Him to give us Jesus, His only son, to make the greatest sacrifice for us; we should be willing to do what is asked of us by our Heavenly Father.  Christ became the sacrifice in our place and paid a debt that He did not owe, and allowed us to escape a debt we could never pay.  Don’t just say it, behave like it, demonstrate it and live it…For words without affluence are empty, and that would mean love without obedience would be vacant!