LOVE LIKE IT'S ALL THAT WE KNOW!

While Madde was cleaning her room today, she was listening to music and this song from Selena Gomez came on. I stopped what I was doing and listened. I love the lines "Live like there's no tomorrow. Love like it's all that we know." You see I have been reading for two months now the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I normally do not take 2 months to read a book, but I have had to keep going back and reread the chapters over. There is so much to take in, that I have to pause in between chapters to let it soak in.

Here is what has left me thinking all weekend while reading this book. Francis writes.....
"But Paul writes that even if "I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing" (1 Cor. 13:2-3) Wow. Those are strong and unmistakable words. According to God, we are here to love. Not much else really matters. So God assesses our lives based on how we love."

I can easily love my family and friends, but it is so hard to love strangers or people that are against me. I can walk by someone in a store and feel sorry for them and that is as far as it goes. I pray for those people that do not like me but I can't say I show them "love" that is a hard one. Or my heart might be in the right place, but my fear won't allow me to approach them to talk to them or help them.

Here is what God says love is...

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends....faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13

Well, after reading those verses, I can't even say I love my family and friends like I really should. I keep reminding myself each day that tomorrow is never promised and I must do my very best today, but life gets in the way and things get hard and some days get out of control. But I love that HIS MERCIES ARE NEW EACH MORNING and when I wake up I get to start over.

So now I look at LOVE a little different these days! But what if we truly loved each other the way God intended us to? This world would be a much nicer place to dewell. In realizing that I don't get a "do over" of the previous day, I do get another day to "do better" and love others the way I really should.

So, if you haven't read Crazy Love by Francis Chan, I highly recommend it!