This past week was mine and Hayley's third time to the Dominican Republic. Each trip has been unique in it's own way and each one has taught us something that we will carry with us. Here is what spoke to Hayley over the past week:
What is love?
According to Dictionary.com, love is a profoundly tender, passionate
affection for another person, usually a child, family member or friend. But what is REAL love? The kind of love God wants us to have with
one another? In the Bible it says to
“Love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the greatest commandment. And
the second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22: 37-39).
So to truly love a person with all your heart, mind, soul and strength,
you must FIRST love God. True love is
not possible on this earth without the love of Jesus. Without God, love is earthly, temporary and
insincere. Earthly love is a set up for
failure. Adultery, premarital
pregnancies and divorces are all results of earthly love. God’s love is heavenly and perfect because
God is love. Heavenly love is
ever-lasting and unstoppable. “Love always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, and always perseveres.
Love never fails.” (1 Cor. 13:7-8).
This is TRUE love. Jesus lives in
the heart of every Christian, so we can all love like Jesus!
I used to think that loving like Jesus was impossible, but
this past week in the Dominican Republic I have learned there are many
different ways to love people; holding a
child, saying ‘HOLA!’ to a stranger,
praying for someone in pain, smiling at an old cross man and understanding that
every person you meet is fighting a battle to be the best they can be. (When
you meet someone you must understand that you are only seeing part of them and
you may never know what is going on in their heart or what they have been through
in their life.) Loving someone the way God
wants you to love them is seeing the good in a person, no matter how bad they
may seem. God created every person in
his image, but a lot of the time these people get lost and lose their righteousness. Seeing the good in every person and putting
them before yourself is how you can show love like Jesus. But the hardest part about loving everybody
is loving the people who have wronged you.
It’s easy to hate a person that
once made fun of you for being chubby or hate a girlfriend that dumped you
harshly, but it takes true character to forgive and love those who hurt you.
“If you love those
who love you, what credit is that to you?
Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to
you? But love your enemies, do good to
them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will
be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
(Luke 6:32-36).
God has put us on this earth to serve Him and spread His
love. We can do this by simply giving an
encouraging smile to the apprehensive woman passing us on the sidewalk. Love isn’t supposed to be a forced and
complicated thing, loving others should be as natural as breathing. My favorite song, Just Because by Scott
Phillips, sums it up perfectly; “I can search the world and find all kinds of
love, but love that is real is love just because.”
No comments:
Post a Comment