You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.
Love each other deeply with all of your heart. Other translations say "love each other deeply and earnestly" and "love as if your life depends on it." These words are powerful and they kept coming back to me throughout the day. I really started to think about this idea of loving others if my life depends on it and loving others so deeply and earnestly.
Yes, we are in Christchurch to start a new church, but how do we do this. For me, this verse sums it up. How do you start a church from nothing? How do you get people interested in a God that can change their lives? The answer to me can be found in 1 Peter 1:22- loving the people of Christchurch as if my life depends on it! Sounds easy enough, but what does that mean?
What does that mean when I am frustrated that our house isn't in great condition when we moved in?
What does that mean about how I act towards our landlord or the people that have been in our home getting it together?
What does it mean to the lady behind the desk I see at the library?
What does it mean to the person I am running next to at the gym?
What does that mean when I interact with our team?
How does it look when I interact with Joe?
What does it mean to our new neighbors?
I must ask, how can we show everyone we come in contact with the love of Christ? Maybe it is performing every action and even going out of our way to love people as if my life depends on it. Hopefully with this pure love, the people we interact with begin to see the hope that we have in Christ.
After all, we love each other because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
1 comment:
Amy
Hang in there girly. You are looking to the right ONE for desiring to show love more.
Love,
mom
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