Every Sunday around here is for His words instead of mine. I’ve been incredibly moved by the phenomenon of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. When was the last time the world paused for a few moments of making themselves look silly (and COLD!) to help someone else? When was it that, regardless of race, religion, age, gender, political affiliation, or fame, people joined together for the common good of their fellow man? We have trouble remembering and yet it’s supposed to be this way everyday…
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. ~ Romans 12:10 ESV
Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that. ~ Luke 6:31-34 MSG
But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? ~ 1 John 3:17 ESV
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. ~ Luke 6:35 ESV
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ~ John 15:13 ESV
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:1-6 MSG
We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. ~ 1 John 3:16 NLT
Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?
Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ~ Matthew 22:36-39 NLT
Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love. ~ Romans 13:8-10 MSG
Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?” ~ Romans 15:2 MSG
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ~ Colossians 3:12-14 ESV
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ~ John 13:34 ESV