The thing that makes life work is Love. Things work as they should when founded in Love; our faith, our hope, our relationships, even the plans for our lives.
Focusing on Love affects how we think, act, what we plan, everything!
What are you focused on?
“Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness”. (Luke 11:34)
The light of the body is the eye. The eye is the point of vision. When our vision is focused it is going to fulfil its vision.
What are you focused on? When you eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. When you eye is bad, focusing on unhealthy things, then your body is also full of darkness.
God wants Love to be our focus.
If we focus on cultivating Love it makes faith work. When faith is working nothing is impossible!
Love causes compassion to rise up in our hearts, to care about things, about others. Our hearts become engaged!
Love activates our faith to start believing, to start reaching out, to love in action.
I love the account of Jesus Feeding the 5000, in Matthew 14:13-21.
Jesus exhibits a faith that’s motivated by a genuine love for people.
In Jesus feeding the 5000 we see that love was the motivation behind the miracle. He had compassion for them.
Read through the Gospels. (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible). Jesus was always motivated by Love.
Some people have never experienced real love like Jesus loves.
But He is love. Love compels Him. Love compelled Him to go to the Cross. Love still compels Him to reach out to each one of us.
I was reading about Heidi and Rolland Baker. They are doing some amazing work in Mozambique and have set up Iris Ministries. Heidi’s motto is “Stop for the One”
It’s become a catch phrase seeking to inspire us to simply take a moment and love the one in front of us. The pressures and busyness of daily life too often create a self focus mentality that hinders us from “stopping for the one”.
But God’s love is revealed through simple acts of kindness. When you love God first and then love the people He puts in front of you each day, the Gospel becomes simple.
STOP FOR THE ONE!
“Stop for the One, is listening and obeying, seeing the poor, the lonely, the stressed, and “stopping for the One”. It could look like a million different things, simple or extravagant. God is calling each one of us to love each person we cross paths with because He loves them. It’s simple “Acts of Kindness”.
“Stop for the one”, practicing acts of kindness” has to be based in love. Love for God, and love for others. Not legalism or good works, but Love. For us to think “How can I love someone today?”
Why not encourage someone today. Everyone no matter who they are needs to know that God is real and that He cares. They’ll know through us loving them.
Today look out for and “Stop for the one”, knowing that as you do your faith is being activated; love makes your faith work.
The best that God wants for us is found in Love! Let’s give our energy, our focus to loving God with everything we have, and letting it flow over to those all around us.
As Heidi says, “I pray that you would be overcome by His spirit, surrounded by His voice and interrupted by His love!”
Prayer: Thank you Lord for your love for me. I ask for your love to cover me, to flow through me, and to fill my heart with compassion for whomever you lead me to today. In Jesus Name. Amen.