- God is LOVE! The most important lesson that God wants us to learn is to LOVE! We are most like God when we love. God wants us to love everybody but He specifically wants us to love others in His family, believers. He wants us to pay special attention to His family and love them because He wants His family to be known for its love. We can not learn to love in isolation. We have to get out and meet people and serve others. You have to be around people to love. You can't just stay in isolation. You have to go out and socialize. For some people this may be a challenge. Start with joining a group at your church. Through fellowship with other people we learn 3 important truths: 1. The Best Use of Life is LOVE
- Love should be our TOP PRIORITY in life. Rick Warren says, "Relationships must have priority in your life above everything else." I am really good at putting my romantic relationship top priority. When I am in a relationship I love so much and so deeply. I definitely make a HUGE effort for that person in my life almost to a fault. That person becomes the center of my world. I switch work schedules, I stop going to other activities, etc. This is good and bad. Yes, I am putting that person top priority and our relationship top priority but, thats just one person. I need to not neglect family and friends which I often times do. "Relationship, not achievements or acquisitions of things, are not what matter most in life." Rick Warren. A lot of people struggle with this one. For me I'd give up all my possessions and degrees to have my friends, family, and future husband and children. The enemy of relationships is busyness. We have to carve out time in our schedules for relationships. They should be our top priority. So often people get so caught up in their career and paying bills that they forget the best use of life is loving others. For me, I work in a career field where I can love on others all day. Life - Love = 0 2. Love Will Last Forever
- Love and kindness have the most impact on earth when you die. When someone is on there deathbed they don't ask to be surrounded by there diplomas, trophies, earthly possessions; they ask to be surrounded by the people they love. You have to love others and make relationships important to you now, we never know how much time we or someone else has left here on earth. When you die no one is going to remember you for your success in sports, degrees you had, career achievements, those will fade. What they will remember you for is the love you poured out to them and others. 3. We Will be Evaluated on Our Love
- God measures spiritual maturity by the quality of our relationships. He is not going to ask you when you get to heaven to tell him about your career or your finances, instead, He is going to ask you how you treated other people. We should love people like God loves the church. Random acts of kindness is a good way to show love to a stranger. Next time you are at a coffee shop pay for someone behind you, it will make someones day and you are showing love to a complete stranger.
THE BEST EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE
- The more time you give someone or something the more you reveal its importance in your life. Again, when I'm in a romantic relationship giving them my time is easy for me, I love them, I want to spend time with them, I make it a huge priority to me. I prioritize other things so that I can adjust my schedule to have time with them. Especially being in a past military relationship, TIME together is important and shows your love. They may get deployed, sent to the field, go to a school and be gone for months at a time. When they are home its important to spent as much time as possible together. Again, this may be a fault in me because I neglect other relationships in my life and I hope in the future once I get into another romantic relationship that I can balance it more. If you want to know a person's priorities look how they spend their time. Do they spend all their time at work, at church, with the ones that love them? Look at where they spend the majority of time and that will show you where their priorities are. The greatest gift you can ever give someone is your TIME. The most desired form of love is focused attention, especially for us women. I would take away all my earthly possessions to have focused time with the ones I love. That means no cell phones! This is hard for all of us in this day and age but we need to give the people we love our focused attention. Guys often times do not get this. They think I am providing for there every need, they should feel loved! For us women the focused attention, one on one time is so important. For those of you that have kids that means date nights without the kids as well. It's important for your relationship.
THE BEST TIME TO LOVE IS NOW!!!
- One day I will enter into another romantic relationship and I hope and pray that I can be more balanced in my love. I definitely make that relationship my first priority and it should be once we are married but I should not neglect my other relationships. Of course, my relationship with God comes first, then will be my spouse, then children. I pray for God to send me my future husband but until then I am going to spread my love, especially to His family. I challenge you if you are single to trust in God's timing, as hard as it is, it's his perfect timing! Pray for exactly what you want in your spouse. Write it out. Give God every detail. I heard God tell me after my last break up, tell me exactly what you want in your spouse. I wrote it out. I then had a lady at work tell me to tell God exactly what you want. I wrote out another list. Then again Pastor Brent Purvis from Cascade Hills Church preached on prayer and he said you have to tell God exactly what you want from hair color, to career, to height, etc. I then proceeded to make a 3 page list and left room to add more. Of course some of those I can budge on but some I will not. I challenge you, tell God what you want and in the meantime focus on your relationship with God. He will reveal things to you and others may often times confirm it.
Point to Ponder: Life is all about love. Verse to Remember: "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love thy neighbor as yourself.' Galatians 5:14 Question to Consider: Honestly, are relationships my first priority? How can I ensure that they are?
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