I am busy listening to sermon series by Erwin McManus, from Mosaic Church in Los Angeles. The sermon series is about 1 John and the title is Proof of Life.
This morning’s sermon really grabbed my, on the most powerful proof of real life within you is if you Love.
Now, love has become a really misused word over time. I mean, we say, I love my car, I love steak, and then in the same breath we will say ‘I love my wife’ or ‘I love God’.
Now, 1 John 3:14 says
Our love for each other proves that we have gone from death to life. But if you don’t love each other, you are still under the power of death.
The love that John is speaking about here, it the same love that Christ showed to us when He died on the cross for us. If we have life within us, which is the Holy Spirit, we have no choice but to have love within us.
You cannot say you have love within you, if you say demeaning things to other people. I you speak hate over other people or if you have racist thought about a certain demographic of people.
To be able to say that you love, you must treat all people like Christ treated them. Teach them out of love, and treat them like you would like to be treated at all times.
For me personally this is sometimes a really big challenge. We so often get angered out of some stupid thing somebody does to you, that you would say something along the lines of, ‘This person is SO stupid’. It does not take a lot to say this, but do we always realise what the impact of those words can have on the other person’s life? If you say this to the wrong person, you might potentially influence them in such a way that they will not want to have anything to do with the other person, and that specific relationship might be exactly what will be needed for the other persons salvation.
Think about it…
We really need to be very careful with what we say to and about our neighbors at all times, and as difficult as it may seem, we must start to think before we speak out of anger.
Yes, love goes much further that just saying something of somebody, but what the heart is full of will be evident in the way you live, and what you say to other people.
