| Daily Thought — February
19, 2008 |
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| LIVING THE
SOLUTION WITH DAILY INSPIRATION |
Watch what
God does, and then you do it, like children who learn
proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God
does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a
life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love
was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in
order to get something from us but to give everything
of himself to us. Love like that. (Ephesians 5:1-2 — The
Message)
Jesus said, love others as I have loved
you and Paul is telling us how Jesus loves us-- extravagantly,
not to get any from us, but to give of Himself. So if you
have ever wondered what Jesus meant when He said love others
as I have loved you now know. But how do we do that? We
have all taken risks in the past, opened ourselves up and
reached out to others in love only to be burned. How do
we do that and deal with the pain of rejection?
I think the key is in this line: "He didn't love
in order to get something from us but to give everything
of himself to us." Why are we reaching out, why
are we showing love to someone? The key is our motive.
It should be to love them for who they are (the person
God created them to be) and to help them to see that,
embrace that, and to start to live it. We should be
expecting nothing from them in return and no matter
what the results we can love without hurt. We only
experience hurt in loving when we are expecting something
in return and do not get back what we wanted. When
we do that we love from a selfish perspective and I
wonder if it really is even love.
The problem is we look to others to meet our needs
for love, acceptance, worth and validation. We do that
instead of looking to God. It is God and God alone
who can meet those needs. As long as we look to others
to fill those needs we will always be searching and
longing because they will disappoint us, they will
let us down. They are human just like us. That is why
we must look to God for our love, acceptance, worth
and validation. When we look to Him and receive it
from Him then we can love others like Paul is describing
in today's verses.
So how do we receive this love, acceptance, worth and
validation from God? Keep company with him, spend time
with Him, let Him speak to you and tell you what you
mean to Him. Spend time at His feet loving Him and
letting Him love you. He loves you so much and will
tell you what a great and glorious person you are,
how wonderfully made you are.
Love like Christ, not cautious but extravagantly.
Live intentionally, purposely, free and with passion,
Pete Reinbold
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Scripture taken from the
Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.Copyright © 1973,
1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights
reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of
International Bible Society.
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks
of International Bible Society. Use of either trademark for the
offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent
of International Bible Society.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission
of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189, USA. All
rights reserved. |
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