Love...It's A Fruit

Some love words about me from my friends...
They uplift me when I am down

Our focus is too much on the bad things going on in this world or even in our own, personal world. We are easy to take offense, we even look out for things that may cause offense to us or to the ones we love.  It's to the point that any and everything we say is being judged by the "Don't offend me" police.

That being said, I am a true believer that you do not try and offend.  We should do our best to avoid offending someone with our words.  Kindness should always win over my need to say something.

I truly believe it is a matter of the heart.  What is the heart of the statement.  I know some things are just mean no matter what but I am not talking about hate speech.  I am talking about someone writing or talking about a subject...what is the heart of the writer or speaker?

Too often times, we are so concerned about how we feel that we don't take into consideration how the other person feels or where they are coming from.  We just assume they are judging us or condemning us or our actions out of malice or hate.  We don't take the time to consider others.

We need to live a life of LOVE.  Love for God, Others and believe it or not, Ourselves.  The Bible tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  If we don't love ourselves, how can we show love to our neighbor?  And, we know that God is love.  All love comes from Him.  He is the fullness of love.

When I focus more on love, how I love God, how I love my family, how I love my friends, church, neighbor, people all over the world...I fill my life with wonderful love.  My perspective, the way I see my world, the way I talk and even the way I listen is altered because of this love.  I am not so easily offended and I don't easily offend.

1 Corinthians 13 The Message (MSG)

The Way of Love

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and 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, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others,

Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

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Make a point to show love to someone today.  It can be anybody...even yourself.  Quit with the negative talk against yourself.  Say something positive.  I know, it can feel crazy but it is necessary.  I pray you have a blessed, happy day.

Love...its a fruit!!!!!