HERE I AM LORD

HERE I AM LORD . . .
“Is it I Lord
I have heard You calling in the night
I will go Lord
If you lead me
I will hold Your people in my heart”

Our sermon this past Sunday was about love.  Loving each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, loving each other as church family and loving the people in the world who are different from us.  The ones who don’t believe in God.  The ones who hate us.  The Lord Jesus died for us all.

Matthew 22:36-40 “………Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is this, Love your neighbor as yourself……..”.

Love is a verb, not a feeling.  I have been hearing this statement my whole life.

I had to figure out the difference of doing things to make someone like me, which was a huge deal to me for many years and just doing something for someone out of love even though I knew that person could not stand me.  

Years ago at another company I worked for, there was a particular lady who didn’t like me at all.  She gossiped about me.  It didn’t matter how much I smiled at her or spoke to her, it just wasn’t happening. 
I was a single mother at the time and so was she.  I guess I thought we had that in common, there should have been a bond.  

I remember one particular time she was planning a birthday party for her little son who was turning one.   I overheard her talking to her friends about the party.  I knew she didn’t make much money and knew she was having trouble with the cost of it.  

I was a new Christian and the Lord laid it on my heart to reach out and help.  Now, I didn’t have much either, but I had recently been the recipient of love offerings from people who reached out to me and my children.  So, from this example, I knew what the Lord wanted me to do.
I brought the money to her and reached out a hand to her.  She looked at me horrified and put both hands behind her back.  She had a very hard time taking that money from me.  I had no judgement for her at all, because I immediately saw myself in her.  

 It takes many years for us to grow into the spiritual person God wants us to be.  I sure have a long way to go, but I am much farther along than the time of this incident.

God is love.  Jesus looked down from the cross on all the ones who put Him there, but what He saw were the ones He put Himself there for.  “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing”.  Luke 23:34

That is the love we are to show to others.  It doesn’t matter what is done to us or maybe even how much we are hated.  We are to love, period.

For His Glory,
Debbie