~  Listen while you read, please!  ~

If I sing but don’t have love, I waste my breath with every song
I bring an empty voice, a hollow noise
If I speak with the silver tongue and convince a crowd but don’t have love
I leave a bitter taste with every word I say
   So let my life be the proof of Your love
   So let my love look like You and what Your made of
   How You lived, how You died…Love is sacrifice
   So let my life be the proof—the proof of Your love
If I give to a needy soul but don’t have love then who is poor
It seems all the poverty is found in
When it’s all said and done, when we sing our final song
Only love remains…only love remains

1 Corinthians 13:1-3
If I can speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy
But don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rust gate
If I speak God’s word with power, revealing all of His mysteries
And making everything as plain as day
And if I have faith to say to a mountain jump and it jumps
But I don’t love, I’m nothing
If I give all I earn to the poor
Or 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, no matter what I believe, no matter what I do
I’m bankrupt without love

“Oh, yes, Father—let my life be the proof of Your love!”  That is SO the DESIRE of my heart. But what do we do with those ‘hard to love’ people? You know the ones I am talking about…the sandpaper people—the ones that rub you the wrong way. Or what about the ones who are unkind, or speak harsh words, or do hurtful things? What about those people?!? Jesus says in Matthew 23:39 that we are to love our neighbor as ourself.  He didn’t say only the nice people or the ones who treat you with kindness. Loving someone who is nice to you is easy, and it doesn’t take much effort. But choosing to love the unloveable and the hard-to-love people…that is where you and I can make a difference in the lives of others…to the undeserving.

I don’t know about you but there was a time before Jesus saved me that I wasn’t so lovely. In fact, I was hard to love! But Jesus loved me anyway. That is also why He said (in John 15:5) “Apart from Me, you can do nothing….” Today God reminds me (and I encourage you!) to go out there and be willing to show the love of the Father to someone who needs it most. There is someone out there that needs to be introduced to a love like none other—the unconditional love of the Father. And to someone to love them right where they are at.

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Heavenly Father, I pray for each and everyone of us, as we go throughout our days, that we would choose to show Your love everywhere we go. That the love that we show others would not be based on how someone treats us but rather that we would choose to love them as You have loved us—with unconditional love. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!!! (Signed a former pit dweller saved by Grace.)

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Interested in joining us for our next Online Bible Study that starts on January 13, 2014?   Click HERE for more details!