Love One Another
There is a government standard for weights and measures that guarantees you always get what you pay for. Imagine ordering a pound of meat and the butcher only gives you ten ounces instead of sixteen. When you protest, he says, "Well, you call it the way you see it, I call it the way I see it. Looks close enough to me." How would you feel? In God's kingdom He sets all the standards including the one for love. John 15:12 says, "This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you." When we start living by that standard, we won't have to worry about betraying each other or speaking evil of each other. We'll be able to confront each other with a love that is protective, and seeks only the best. Also, the one who is confronted will be secure enough to know that they won't be rejected, judged, or thrown out with the garbage just because they had made a mistake.
There are really two kinds of love: convenient love and covenant love. Convenient love says, "I'll love you as long as I get what I want." But covenant love says, "I'm committed to loving you in spite of your shortcomings, because God put us together." In I Thessalonians 3:12, the apostle Paul prayed that our love would "…increase and overflow for each other…" Increasing love! Overflowing love! In order to meet that standard we have got to cleanse our heart, get our motivation right, and begin to move to a higher level of commitment. That covenant love or "agape" love will always manifest itself in the physical realm by our willingness to serve others. Serving friends and enemies, family and stranger, church and community, is what God has called us to do. In Galatians 5:13, the scripture instructs us to "…serve one another in love…"
One aspect of serving one another is to help people by looking for something good in them and then helping them to build on it. Help others to capitalize and develop their God-given gifts and talents. Low self-esteem runs crazy in this world today because people choose to listen to what the world says about them instead of what the Word of God says about them. If people don't feel good about themselves, they'll never believe that they can be successful. Learn to make people around you, especially your family and friends, to feel special and important, because God says that they are. You can love them into that reality, even when they have lost the love for themselves. Listen to I John 3:2 here, "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He (Christ) appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." For every individual, God has a divine plan and purpose. Help those around you to see that. Regardless of ones color, culture, or background, with God, everyone has the potential for excellence. Paul once said of Timothy, "I have no one quite like Timothy. He is loyal, and genuinely concerned for you." (Philippians 2:20) Can you imagine how Timothy must have felt when he heard those words? Life gives us more kicks than kisses, and all of us need words of praise and encouragement from time to time. Think about it. There is something of encouragement that you can turn and speak to someone right now. If no one is in the room with you at this very moment, pick up the phone and call someone. Take five minutes right now, and the Lord will show you who to call and what to say. Can you do it???
Michael R. Smith