Love needs expression

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. – Leviticus 19:18

Somehow the command to love doesn’t get through to us. We may confess that we lack a strong faith, but seldom do we admit that we are deficient in love. Perhaps we feel we’re as loving as the next person, and maybe a little bit more.

After all, we’re sensitive to the hurts of other people. Our hearts go out to battered wives and abused children when we read about them in the newspaper. We shift uneasily in front of our TVs when we see little children sobbing with hunger or sitting in silent despair beyond crying.

But deep inside we know that genuine caring reached beyond feelings to action. Caring, like steam or electricity, isn’t worth much unless something happens as a result of it. Love without deeds is useless, just as talent not demonstrated in creative ways is wasted. Both must be expressed or they are no better than a myth.

Because we can’t do everything, we often don’t do anything. If you want to be a loving person, don’t start by taking on the needs of the whole world. Start with caring about one person and build from there.

You can’t do everything, but you can do something. What you can do, you should do. Today, determine that in the power and grace of God you will do it. – Haddon Robinson

Let us be Christ’s true disciples,
Looking to another’s need,
Making stony pathways smoother
By a gentle word or deed. – Thorson

READ: Matthew 22:34-40

In a world that couldn’t care less, we are to be people who couldn’t care more.

The Bible in one year:

• Haggai
• Revelation 17