Love Extravagantly

1 Corinthians 13:13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

The Message says:  “But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.”

Until perfection comes, until Completeness arrives, until Jesus returns we can focus on three things.

Faith: As Christians we have faith in God as revealed in Christ Jesus and in His Word. He has revealed his character as holy, eternal, gracious, loving, and trustworthy.

Hope: Our hope is in the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the one and only God who will reign forever, and ever.

Love: We love because he first loved us and revealed his love in Christ Jesus. He taught extravagant love in his death on the cross for us. We are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love others as we love ourselves. The greatest gift, the greatest way to live is to love extravagantly.

Lord, grow us in loving as you love – extravagantly.

Love Puts Up With Anything

1 Corinthians 13:7 Love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

The Message says: “Love puts up with anything. Trusts God. Always looks for the best. Never looks back, but keeps going to the end.”

Love looks at the positive side of everything! If we love, we will guard, care for, and shield those in trouble or in need. If we love, we will trust God and we will trust others in spite of their shortcomings. If we love, we will see the glass as half full – at least.

If we love, we will live in the present and look forward to the future. We will forget the past. We will forget the hurts and betrayal of others. We will focus on the good, true and lovely in the present and expect grand things in your future kingdom.

If we love, we won’t give up. We will press on as Paul did. We will persist. We won’t quit.

Lord, this is a hard, yet marvelous recipe to follow. Teach us to love through your Holy Spirit.

Hope for Grieving

The Dawn of Hope: Encouragement for those who grieve is a small book with a brilliant hope-filled message for all who grieve. The author, Eldyn Simons, recounts the loss of his sixteen year old son who died in a plane crash while on a summer student exchange trip to Peru. There is no loss more difficult than the loss of a child. There is no loss more difficult than the sudden loss of a child.

The author has walked this road of grief and knows the tremendous pain and suffering it entails. He teaches the importance of facing the pain as well as how to hang onto God and the hope that He offers.

In short chapters beginning with a scripture and ending with a poem and a prayer, Simons tells about the loss of his son and recounts other losses—the loss of a spouse, the loss of the older generation, even the loss of a child by miscarriage.

God led Simons on a “journey of wonder and discovery” after the darkest night of his soul. He says God “will take you to many unexpected places, places of which you may never even have dreamed…. He will teach us how to bear the pain, how to laugh again, how to once more taste life’s sweetness. He will never leave us.”

He also says, “Our responsibility is to hold fast to God, to snuggle close so nothing can come between us. His part is to cover us with his love, to encourage and nourish us with His life that we may be fruitful in our service to him, no matter what conditions surround us.” This is a marvelous little book for those who are grieving. Buy a few and give them to friends who are hurting.

“When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs, where pools of blessing collect after the rains!” Psalm 84:6 TLB

Blessings, Dottie