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Love is seeing others as valuable and precious. How often do we hear those words, you are valuable and precious to me? I hope you know that God values you and thinks you are wonderful! I want to be one person who lets you know today that God does have a wonderful plan for your life, and it is all because He loves you. The new commandment that God gave for us to follow is that we love Him with all of our heart, and that we love our neighbors too – Matt 22:38-39. The Bible states that all of the 10 commandments are wrapped up in those two. I’ve said it before like this, the New Two trump the Big Ten! It is important that we know we are loved, because then we can love others. As believers, our life should revolve around Christ. A Christian is a Christ like one, and Christ should be the center of our existence, our most important Counselor, and the One we depend on in all circumstances. I hope during this month when romantic love has been celebrated that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God loves you! His love really is unmeasurable, because there is no end. He has placed His love in you, so that you can not only know his love, but you can love Him back, and show your love to others everyday, in every way! Greater love has no man than this, that He lay down His life for His friends. That scripture is from John 15:13 and really is proof of God’s great love for us. Seed time and harvest have always been, and will always be. Jesus laid His life down as a seed so that we could be a part of the harvest. He was crucified and buried, laying His life down, so that we could know Him. Not as a distant acquaintance, but as a close intimate friend. He calls us His friends, not servants or subjects, but the very friends of God. The love God has for us is the greatest love that the world has ever known. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son that who so ever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. We become part of His family by accepting Him as our personal Savior. Then we choose daily to lay down our own life down in obedience to Him. That’s the greatest love being reciprocated, and quite an excellent harvest for seed sown.

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Today, I want to direct my words toward those who are married. Are you as emotionally connected as you would like to be to your spouse? I know there are plenty of good marriages out there, where both mates feel loved, supported and valued. I also know that there are plenty of struggling marriages where the opposite is true. There are questions of how long you will last together, were you right for each other to begin with, and can you face another day of the pain and struggle. If you are in the second category, there is hope for a better marriage, and for those who already have a good one, it can become great. I John 4 is a beautiful chapter expressing God’s love and giving the reason that God loves us…. that we might live (an abundant life) through Him (vs 9). When we live through Him, we can love like He loves, and that is when His love is perfected in us (vs 12). His Spirit in us is evidence of His perfect love dwelling in us! Our love is made perfect when we walk in boldness demonstrating God’s love, by being and living like Him in this world (vs17). We can be a conduit of God’s love through us to our spouse! Love is the complete fulfillment of the Law of God. Romans 13:8 tells us that we will fulfill the law by loving our fellow man and especially our spouses if we are married. As we clothe ourselves in Christ, we are fulfilling the law of love, and letting love be perfected in us. Are you letting love have it’s perfect work? Today, you can! Demonstrate the love of God to your mate! You can reflect God’s life-giving, loving nature through your words and actions. You’ve heard it said that faith without works is dead. The same can be said for love, love without corresponding action is empty. We can, through our words and deeds, obey the command of Christ to walk in love. Show some love to your spouse today!

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How easily are you distracted? Very easily is my answer!!! Distractions happen to everyone …..I start out to do one thing, get distracted and then can’t remember what I was going to do in the first place! There is one thing we can’t be distracted from and that is our purpose in life. Jesus lived life with purpose. He came to earth, did what He was meant to do, and completed his job. He even said it is finished when he job was accomplished. We should learn to be more like him. We should be good starters, and good finishers. We should be ones who know what we are supposed to do, and then get it done. My kids love it when I give him a list….then he knows exactly what he has to do before he gets to go have fun. The list helps him stay on track, and he gets the satisfaction of checking things off as he gets them done. When our son was younger, if he did the whole list really well, without complaining, we have a prize basket he gets to pick from. So there is a reward at the end of the job. Jesus did all the work for us, and then he gave us the reward! How cool is that! When he said it was finished on the cross, he had completed his task, and we got the reward of relationship with God, an abundant life here on earth, and a home in heaven when we die…..how awesome!!! He stayed the course, and wasn’t distracted from what he came to do….. all because of love. Can we be like him? I believe you can!

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It is an interesting word study to just look up all the scriptures that talk about love, and read them one after another. Here are some of them:
We get a deposit of God’s love on the inside of us (Rom 5:5)
The love of God is abounding to us (I Thes 3:12),
It is sincere (Rom 12:9),
It is unselfish (Matt 22:39),
It is impartial (Deut 10:19),
It is fervent (I Peter 1:22),
It is compelling (2 Cor 5:14),
It is divine (John 15:9),
It is self – sacrificing (John 15:13)
and it is sacrificial (Gal 2:20)
All of God’s love is deposited into our spirit! (Romans 5:5)
That is just a short list of the adjectives that describe the love of God. And that is just a short list of the attributes of love that can (and should) be found in us. Make these adjectives the way you love others. While talking about parts of speech, it really is important to remember that Love is A VERB. I hope that we are getting what love really is. Love is more than just a feeling, more than just words. Love is an action. If we really love, we serve. God’s love on the inside of us is there just for that. Whether we are in a relationship or just being neighborly, God’s love in us compels us to serve others. What is so great about serving others is that it not only helps them, it helps us too! So what kind of love are you showing those around you? Are you loving sacrificially and sincerely? Then the natural result is service! Let’s love enough to serve others!

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Have you ever been lost in a big city, not knowing how to get to your destination? Or maybe you have experienced being lost in the woods, or took a wrong turn and went the wrong direction for a while on a highway. Being lost is a terrible feeling. With today’s technology of electronic gadgets that beep at you if you make a wrong turn, or having a cell phone handy to call someone who knows how to get to where you are going, it isn’t quite as easy as it once might have been to lose your way. But there are lots of lost people in our world. They are without direction, heading down the wrong road, and they need someone who will guide them to the right path, out of the darkness and into the light. That’s where you come in! Really, as believers, we shouldn’t just be consumed with ourselves, in fact, we should be less consumed with ourselves, and more consumed, and concerned about others. What we are talking about are real life and death situations. People’s lives are in the balance, and just like Jesus came to rescue us, we can throw a life line to someone who needs it. They really don’t care if our skills are perfect, they just want to be saved! It is like someone who is thirsty. They don’t care if they drink from Waterford crystal or a Dixie cup, they just need water. So if you are feeling like you aren’t skilled enough or have the proper tools, think again. If you’ve been rescued, you can rescue someone else. If you’ve been given a drink of living water, you can give some to someone else. That is showing compassion, and that is, loving like Jesus.

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One important area to develop is our prayer life, if we want to be more compassionate to people around us. During our time of connecting with God through prayer we can ask Him to impart into us His compassion for the lost and the hurting that we come in contact with. He wants His heart to be a part of who we are, so when we ask Him for more of His heart, He will liberally supply. Having a heart for the lost is essential for believers. They are part of our mission. Jesus told us to go into all the world and tell everyone, that He is answer. He is their supply, their source, everything they will ever need. When we have compassion flowing through us, we will look beyond the outward appearance, and see into the hearts. The Bible clearly tells us to regard no man according to the flesh, or our outward image. We have the ability through the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit to see more deeply and to connect with the heart of the Father and be able to show compassion for those who are hurting. When we act like Jesus and show compassion, we are being the light, we are being His hands and feet, and most of all we are being obedient to God by loving like He does. So if you need more compassion in your life, ask God to help you, and then begin opening your eyes to those around you. It will be obvious that needs are everywhere, and you can start right where you are, loving like Jesus does.

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I’m sure you know someone who is mercy motivated in your circle of friends. I have several mercy motivated people in my life and their compassion for others amazes me. I have limited compassion and theirs seems endless. To have the compassion of Jesus that flows from us, really makes us go beyond ourselves and see through the eyes of Jesus. He saw people as sheep without a shepherd. Sheep need a shepherd! In our terminology, we might say people need a leader. We need someone with vision to help us stay on the path that we were designed to walk. Another analogy might be to keep flourishing we need to have a steady flow into our lives, and a steady flow out. We need to continue being filled with the Spirit of God, and we need at the same time to be giving out of the overflow to others around us. Jesus did just that. He stayed in a state of readiness to be able to, at a moment’s notice, show compassion on someone he was near. I like to think of Jesus having all the motivational gifts, and he definitely showed mercy generously to others. If we want to act like him, even if our motivational gift isn’t mercy, we can still be merciful. I really like that right after the motivational gifts are talked about in Romans 12 that the heading in my Bible says “Behave Like a Christian”. How does a Christian behave? From Jesus’ demonstration we know that Christians are called to show mercy. That’s how we can be like Jesus.

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Hi this is Dorette Schaal with an Encouraging Word for your day. This whole month we’re going to be exploring how we can love more like Jesus. When Jesus invited us to love like Him, He not only told us how to love, but He demonstrated it by how he lived. During this journey we will be discovering how we can connect more deeply with Jesus, and be transformed into His image. How can we answer the common question we so often ask ourselves, “can I ever be all that Jesus wants me to be?” The answer is YES!!! Here is your dailyeword.

This week we are going to be looking at the way Jesus loved by his compassion for others, and the way He was purposefully intentional in all that He did. What a lot of ground to cover!!! To talk about His compassion for others, all we have to do is read the gospels and see how he interacted with people and know that His heart was always willing to help and heal everyone He came in contact with. The only people He was resistant to were those who were “religious” with more regard for rules than for people. Otherwise, Jesus was willing to talk to, eat with, and touch those who might have been shunned by the religious leaders and rulers of the day. He also was a person with a mission. He clearly knew what He came to earth for, and He was prepared and willing to take on his task, as hard as it may be. He was intentional about doing the will of His Father. What is interesting is how many times when Jesus related to people in His world that he asked them what they wanted. He was intentional about finding out where people were and how He could meet them right where they were. What He did while He was on the earth was gave us a pure, unfiltered look at who the Father is. In the midst of that, He showed us that living a life actively involving God in every aspect of life is the only way to live. That was a result of his compassion, He knew we had to be connected to God to inherit eternal life, and to live the best life we could live on this earth. Jesus’ compassion is what brought us to God. How encouraging !

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As you take a day of rest, and enjoy your Sunday, why not take a few moments and evaluate what things in your life, whether it be possessions, activities or even relationships, that eat up your time and energy. If we want to live purposefully intentional lives, and love the way Jesus loves, we need to take time to examine ourselves. Being self aware is a good thing! Take the blinders off, and see clearly the areas in your life where you can be more purposeful about loving the way Jesus loves. Usually we make time for what is important to us, but I know we all can let unimportant things slip in to waste our time. So as you have a few moments today or in the next few days, why not consider how you spend your time. What eats up minutes or even hours in your day that are too valuable to waste? One thing I know you shouldn’t take off your list is your time with God in worship and in His Word. Loving Jesus is priority #1. Those are moments that pay you back. Another thing you shouldn’t take off your list is a reasonable amount of time to nourish your body…. through good, healthy food, and replenishing exercise. Another thing that needs to stay on your list is your relationships….in fact what might be a good idea, is to take a little more time today to spend with your spouse and kids if you have them. People are always more important than projects! Plan to enjoy them, and have fun together. Then start reprioritizing your life. Put the important things first. Those things that seem urgent may not really be important at all. Being wise in the way you act and making the most of every opportunity will put you on the right path. (Eph 5:16) And when you do live purposefully and intentionally, you will find that you are becoming more like Jesus….and that is our goal! Let’s love like Jesus loves.

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To be purposefully intentional and love like Jesus, there are some hindrances in our life that we need to lay down. I really like how Hebrews 12:1 and 2 state that. Obviously we need to lay aside sin, and recon ourselves dead to it. But Hebrews 12:1 also says that we need to leave weights behind as well. If we really want to run this race effectively, there are things that need to be set aside. Personally, we need to take some time and evaluate how we spend our time. What baggage might we be carrying that is holding us back? The baggage could even be a relationship or relationships with people that aren’t positive. What would be a weight in your own life? Are there habits, or could it even be actual weight, that holds you back from living intentionally with purpose? God’s desire is that we be intentional in our race. We have to run with purpose, and that takes training and discipline. Those aren’t words we like to hear, but to be a Christian, which means a Christ like one, who loves like Jesus, we have to run this race with excellence. So take off your heavy boots, put the parka away, take off the backpack of baggage, leave those old habits behind, and be prepared to run the race more effectively. We can run for the prize and win for God! Without all that extra stuff holding us back, we can really live with purpose, and then be prepared to love others, like Jesus does.

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