A Verb part 3
Charity is love in action. Love is an action word. True, sacrificial, agape love is where the rubber meets the road. Where you lay your life down for your friends. Give everything you have and everything you are. Love is giving, and giving is an action. What I'm trying to say is: You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. Telling someone "I love you," but seeing a need and refusing to fill it, means you either don't understand love, or you don't love them. Harsh? Maybe. But faith without works is dead. Look at John 13:35, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." We preach "Jesus" but we don't its really just work-based, man-centered, performance. Religion. Earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. That's not Jesus. God is love. You want to preach the gospel, you preach love. And you "preach" love... by loving people. What's that old quote? "Preach the gospel at all times, and if you must, use words." Something like that. But the point is, some of the best conversations I've ever had about God didn't even include the Word "God." Because we were talking about love. Almost like preaching on the sly. Here's what people should say about Christians: They are the most loving people I know. But here's what people seem to say about Christians: Judgmental. Hypocritical. Mean. Not a good look when you're representing the God who--again--IS love. We are the visible expression of the invisible God. When God sees us, He see Jesus. And when God sees Jesus He sees us. And when people see us they see God. Because He lives in us. LOVE lives in us. Every breath we take and every move we make is love. Because of love. For love. By love. God so loved the world that He GAVE His only Son. So that we might know ourselves AS His beloved Son. So that we might stop doing actions in order to GET love, but so that we might do actions because we HAVE love. You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. People will know we are disciples because of the love we give. People will know who God is because of the love we give. I like it when people don't know that I'm a pastor, but they think I'm nice. I think that's a good reflection on my upbringing. On my (heavenly) Father. When people compliment Logan on what a good boy he is, I usually just thank them. But in my head I always think, "That's on purpose." I'm trying to raise him right. Train up a child in the way he SHOULD go. So what I do is I love him as hard as I can at all times. Not a day in his life has ever gone by that I haven't told him I love him. And, more importantly, SHOWN him. I tell him all the time, "What's mine is yours." I have literally given him everything I have and everything I am. And I'm not bragging. Just trying to explain a Father's love for His Son. Giving. Action. Not just words. Not just doing the bare minimum. Maximum effort. That's what love takes... because that's what love IS. Love is the most you can do for someone. Because love is everything. The most important thing. Perhaps the ONLY important thing. And its not just an idea. Its a verb.