Day 162: YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

Psalms 139:13-14

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Something we don’t hear enough is, “you’re beautiful” or “You’re handsome”. I think as the church we tend to neglect the idea of self-esteem when it comes to beauty. We tend to beat around the bush when it comes to caring about our physical appearance. We as Christian are very focused on what’s on the inside, we don’t really focus on physical appearance. It’s more about what our heart looks like. While that is great and I do not want to discredit that in any way, I believe that it is important for people to be complimented. I feel that it is important for us as Christians to have confidence. I believe that we should be able to see ourselves as beautiful and not be accused of arrogance or cockiness.

God formed the innermost parts of us but He also formed the outermost parts of us. We were created by the greatest artist there is, was, and will be. We are the greatest work of His hands, made in His image. If that’s not beautiful I don’t know what is. I talk about this because I truly believe that we are beautiful people and we must believe that. It’s something that many people especially people in our generation suffer with. You’re beautiful, don’t let anyone tell you it’s just on the inside.

One of my favorite movies and musicals is The Color Purple. It’s a beautiful story, and a piece of the plot is a woman finding her own beauty and learning to own that. There is a point in the story where she can’t even look in the mirror for more than two seconds. She doesn’t see herself as beautiful because she has been told over and over that she was ugly. She has been beaten down all her life and eventually, she starts to believe it. I tell this story because there are too many people especially within the body of Christ, as I stated above, walking around with low self-esteem. There are too many people out there who don’t believe that they are beautiful. I’m talking about the men too, especially men, they get overlooked too often. We all need to hear it at one point or another. It’s one thing to think but ti believes it is different. I grew up being bullied really bad, I was called ugly every day for years and I heard that word so much that I eventually started to believe it. This is why hearing it is important.

I feel like a lot of people are opposed to Christians being attractive, especially if they’re pastors. Like, people are really shocked when they see a pastor who is attractive. It’s interesting like it’s almost a sin in the world for a Christ follower to be hot. Our beauty isn’t just on the inside, we are human just like the next person, and there is nothing wrong with being told you’re beautiful, feeling beautiful, or wanting to be told you’re beautiful.

Back to the story of the color purple. In the musical at one point the actress playing the lead sings a song, and in the middle of that songs she looks out into the audience and says, “I’m beautiful”, not once but twice. The actress Cynthia Erivo who plays the role talks about this moment in the play. She discusses how we need to hear this statement more often and how we do not hear it enough. I believe that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and we have to believe that to be true in every part of our lives.

All this to say, have confidence, know that you are beautiful. Start to see yourself as more than just a beautiful person on the inside but know that God has made you and there you are the most beautiful thing ever. You’re beautiful on the inside but you’re also beautiful on the outside. Believe that.

Reflection

Take the time today to look in the mirror and say, I’m “beautiful” or ‘I’m handsome”, gorgeous, pretty, stunning, cute, whatever word you choose. Then compliment someone, make someone feel good about themselves today and every day following.

Prayer Time

Take the time to pray that God boosts the confidence of His people. Have a conversation with Him about what we talked about today.

I love you, I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 163!

Day 142: Recap (ICYMI)

Day 135: Independent or Full of Pride

Today we talked about the difference between wanting to be independent or being full of pride. How we sometimes focus more on boasting and bragging than actually being independent. We focused on Proverbs 29:23 and 2 Chronicles 26:16

"If we really want to be independent we will put our pride aside and know that independence is not all about self. It is not about being able to brag and boast about how well we do on our own. "

Day 136: How Are You?

Today we talked about checking in with ourselves. We talked about how we never really consider how we are doing when asked, we just say fine, good, or okay, even when we are broken on the inside. We focused on Ecclesiastes 3:4.

"We neglect ourselves too often, sometimes we have to sit back and consider how we are actually doing. What’s going on inside us, check in on our soul, see how everything is going. "

Day 137: Is it Worth It?

Today we talked about how, even though we may have everything we every dreamed of, if we lose our soul none of it will be worth it. We focused on Mark 8:36 and Matthew 4:8-11.

"Our soul is the very essence of who we are, it’s our heart, it’s everything that makes us, us. If we lose that what do we have? Who are we?  "

Day 138: Representing the Cross

Today we talked about how our lifestyle should point to Christ. We talked about being ambassadors for Christ and representatives of His kingdom. We focused on 2 Corinthians 5:20.

"As Christians, we are meant to live a life that points towards Christ. We are to live our lives as Jesus lived His. "

Day 139: The Great Commission

Today we talked about the great commission and how God sends us on a mission to spread HIs word and lead people to Him. We focused on Matthew 28:16-20.

"We don’t have to be pastors and preachers to lead people to Christ. As we pointed out yesterday, the life we live should point to Christ. "

Day 140: Selfless Nature

Today we talked about being selfless and being able to put others before ourselves. We focused on Philippians 2:3-4.

"We must come to the realization that there are things and people that are more important that our concerns. There are more people out there besides ourselves. We must live is a world where we take a stand for one another, where we are concerned about one another. "

I love you, and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Have fun today. Be sure to come back tomorrow for Day 143!

Day 123: Don't Wear Yourself Out

Today’s message ironically is about taking it easy, slowing it down, stopping for a moment and taking a breath. As I am currently in the midst of finals and being an RA at the end of the year, so that means preparing myself and a whole floor of college students to move out. Getting plane tickets and storages. Trying to sleep, which I have not do much of the past two days, in the last 48 hour I’ve slept for 8 of them. It is hard for me to sit down at the moment, everything is so crazy, trying to make sure I stay on top of everything as much as possible. With all this going on I find myself falling apart, losing it.

Genesis 2:2-3

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work.

Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Mark 2:27

Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Exodus 34:21

"You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest, you shall rest.

John 4:3-6

So he left Judea and returned to Galilee. He had to go through Samaria on the way. Eventually, he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime.

Mark 4:38

Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?"

Sometimes we can get so caught in everything we are doing and things we need to do that we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. We forget that sometimes we have to give ourselves a little TLC. There is nothing wrong with sitting down and resting, especially after a lot of hard work.

Our generation gets a lot of slack for being lazy but when it is time to work we are probably the hardest workers in the room. Sometimes we can work a little too hard, and overwork ourselves, and we don’t want to do that. We have to take care of the body God has given we cannot run it into the ground. We have to recuperate and rest when it’s needed.

I’ll take myself for an example, beware I am about to talk a lot about acting so bear with me for a minute. I’ve had times in classes where teachers have made me sit out because I have tried to work when I was sitting or hurt. For those of you who are performers or in the theater you know how hard the craft can be on our bodies. Today I was in stage combat class, I hadn’t eaten all day, it’s five in the evening and my knees have been bothering me the whole day. As I go to start the fight, I raised my sword, lost my balance and fell. From that point on my knees were hurting even worse. In the meantime, I had a paper due by six so I was taking every little break I could to get it finished. My partner asked me if I was okay, not wanting to stop the fight because our big test is coming up, I pushed through it. Eventually, I had to keep stopping because my knee was throbbing. At one point I stopped the fight and just hopped on one leg because I could not take the pain. That is when I decided to sit down. When I tried to get up and do the fight again my teacher would not allow me to out of fear that I would hurt myself more. I wanted to keep going because I did not want to miss out on any practice. It was good for me to sit down and not do anything because if not I would have hurt myself and not be able to take the test coming up.

All this to say, Know your limits. I know we all want to be limitless and superhuman, but our bodies can only take so much. Listen to your body when it’s telling you to stop or rest, most times it’s right.

Take a look at the above scriptures, God rested after creating for six days. The Sabbath is known as the day of rest, the scripture commands the people not to do anything on those days but rest. Jesus rested when He was tired and slept. Jesus was on that boat getting some rest when the disciples were freaking out about the storm.

Take a break when you can, even if it five minutes take the time to check in with yourself and make sure you are okay, Your physical health is just as important as your spiritual health. We have to stay healthy and not run ourselves to the ground.

Reflection/ Prayer Time

Just take a moment to check in with yourself, ask God to help you recognize when you are overworking yourself and rest. Take the time to rest, your physical body.

I love you I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Share this with someone and make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 124!

Day 33: The Power of the Tongue

If you are in your twenties growing up you most likely heard the saying “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.” It’s what they said when you told the teachers you were being bullied. I’m not sure if they understood not only the power of the words, but the impact they had on us. Especially when we grew older and learned that words hurt the most.

Growing up I was bullied mercilessly, I was beat up everyday, and teased for my height, my hair, my dark skin. I was called ugly everyday from the age of five to ten. I was called ugly so much to where I started to believe it, I started to hate my dark skin, and the fact that I was short. I began to adopt the language that was spoken to me, after a while I would look in the mirror and call myself ugly, and repeat what I was hearing from all the people at school. As I got older the physical abuse stopped but the verbal abuse stuck with me, it increased from outsiders and increased within me. And it killed me, it crushed me. If I was not such an imagination driven person, and an actress I probably would have committed suicide. I’m being very honest. What’s crazy about it all is, it wasn’t getting beat up that hurt me, it was the words people used to degrade me that hurt me the most. And the language I used towards myself that crushed my spirit. I have been on both sides of the spectrum, I have said things that have hurt people, and used my tongue as defense and a weapon. Words hurt so much because there is power behind them, and when we know that it’s even worse.

-Dyamond

There are so many scriptures that speak about the tongue, and watching what we say that I can write an entire book. But today we will take it  scripture by scripture.

Proverbs 18: 21

The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.

• There is a price for everything we say. We must be careful what comes out of mouths because we never know how it can impact those we are speaking to. We don’t know the power our language has over someone else and even ourselves. Our words can speak life into people or they can speak death. Verse 20 talks about wise words satisfying like a good meal, we should fill our brothers and sisters up with our words. What we say to others and ourselves should lift people up. We are not supposed to use the tongue as a weapon, we are to speak wisdom, kindness, love. Everything we say has an outcome and consequence, whether it’s good or bad is up to us.
  
  

Psalms 141:3

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!

• David is literally asking God to control what comes out of His mouth. Guard his lips so that he does not even utter anything evil.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I know we have all had moments where we ask God  to guard our mouths when that one person is pressing every button, working every nerve, and trying you every way possible. And it feels like it will take Jesus Himself, and flock of angels to stop you from saying what you want to say, which is everything you are not supposed to say. But you don’t explode you hold your tongue and make sure you let them know Jesus saved them. We’ve all been there, and if you haven’t you’re either perfect, or lying. Or you are just really great at holding your tongue.
  
  
• Sometimes we have to pull a David and say “lord guard my tongue.” we have to pray at that instant so that we won’t say anything that we will regret later, or that will cause pain or harm to our brother or sister.
  
  
• Matthew 15:11- It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

James 1:19

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

• Sometimes our mouths are quicker than our brains. MAny times we don’t really mean the things we say we just say them because we don’t think before we speak. We have to remember what we were taught as kids to think before we speak.
  
  
• Another thing, we spend so much time speaking that we don’t listen. I’ve gotten into so many arguments because I wasn’t listening to what was being said to me or I wasn’t being listened to. When we decide to listen rather than just speak we will understand so much more and be happier people because we won’t be so angry all the time because we misunderstood what someone was saying to us.

James 3:4-6,10 (Expanded passage verses 1-12)

• And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong.  In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.  And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.

Reflection

The tongue is the smallest member of our body yet it seems to have the most power. The scripture compares the tongue to a tiny spark that can set a great forest fire. A rudder that controls a massive ship. With so much power in such a small member, why not use it for good? We don’t always have to be silent out of fear that we will say something wrong, we can lift each other up with our words. Encourage someone today, other than yourself, anyone: a stranger, a friend, a family member. Use the mouth God gave us for good.

Today make the effort to change your language from curses to blessings, from death to life, from bad to good.

Prayer Time

Pray the prayer David prayed, that GOd will set a guard over our lips. As you reflect on the passages today, think about what it means to speak life, to lift each other up with our words. Pray about and ask God to help you control your tongue and speak wisdom, life, and encouragements to your brothers and sisters in Christ.

If you have been hurt by words someone has said to you, now is the time for healing. Now is the time to let it go and know that God’s words are greater, His words are more power and hold more truth than anyone on this planet. Forgive the people that hurt you even if you never receive an apology.

If you are someone who has used your words to hurt others, as you ask God for forgiveness know that you are forgiven, and forgive yourself. If you feel lead to, ask that person for forgiveness.

Just rest in God’s love, and know that His words are heavy with truth.  

I HOPE YOU HAVE AN AMAZING DAY!!! I LOVE YOU!
Make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 34!

Day 17: Loving People

I’m pretty sure we can all agree that love is not only beautiful but powerful. Love is more powerful than anger, pain, and definitely more powerful than hate. Love is a necessity and a want. I love talking about love because I just love, love. Since I’ve become a christian my desire to love people has gotten stronger. I find myself in positions all the time where I can’t help myself, I love you. I can’t hold grudges, it doesn’t sit right with me to stay angry, or waste my time hating people. I’m just a sappy love ball, I can’t help it and I love it. I’ve found that since I’ve experienced the love of God and understood what it means to be loved by God, I want everyone to feel this type of love, so why not give it to them?

-Dyamond

We all  deserve love, and I’m not talking about love in a romantic way, (we will get to that subject later in the year I promise). No matter who  you are, what you look like, what your social or financial status is,  where you came from, what you’ve done in your life. You deserve to be loved, unconditionally. Love doesn’t give up or end. Loving someone unconditionally means no matter what happens, there is nothing someone can do to make us stop loving them. That’s how God loves us, He never stops loving us, There’s nothing we can do to make Him love us more or less. He can’t help Himself, he loves us, even before we loved Him. Some people will never love God but He still loves them. It’s the same with loving people, sometimes we have to love people even though we know they will never love us back. We have to love people while at the same time, knowing it will never be reciprocated. That’s unconditional love, we don’t love just the people who love us, we love everyone. In the same way Jesus loved everyone He came across, it did not matter if they were Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans, tax collectors, thieves, murderers. Whoever they were Jesus came to save them too, He went into the houses of people who were considered criminals and outcast. Jesus love is unconditional to all people, and therefore as we live like Christ we shall also love like Christ.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Mark 2:1-12

And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

This passage is one of my favorites, and not for the obvious reasons. I want to focus on the four men in this story. These four men were the reason the man who was paralyzed got healed. They went out of their way to make sure this man got to Jesus.  THe could have left Him there when they got in the first time and said “we tried.”shrugged and walked away. Instead the did something so loving that Jesus had to honor their faith in the situation. These four men were carrying a paralyzed man on a bed, and when they could not get in through the door they went to the roof. When they got to the roof they put a hole in it, as hole big enough so that the man could fit through it. Then it says they ‘let down the bed.’ They did not drop it, they let it down, gently, making sure that he was safe. I’m not sure how long it took for the men to do all of this, but all I know is that they saw a need and met it. They knew that this man could not get to Jesus alone, so they took him. They went through all that trouble because they knew Jesus would heal him, they had faith that He could and would be healed.

Sometimes loving people is having faith for them. Sometimes we have to go out of our way for people, not because it makes us look like a good person but because we are here serve and love others. Sometimes love means sacrifice, we have to put ourselves on the line for others. We have to love people who we don’t agree with, we have to love the people we don’t want to be around all the time, we have to love the people who do us wrong and hurt us. Loving people isn't always pretty, but it is so much better than carrying around the burden of hate.  

1 John 4:20

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

How can we hate our neighbor who we see everyday, and profess to love God, whom we have never seen. Loving people is more that just a phrase, it’s an action word. We are always so quick to say, “I love you because I have to.” But just like anything else love is a choice. God chooses to love us, even when we give Him reason not to. We must simply choose love over hate, we must choose to love people, Now I know that some people are hard to love, but just imagine how hard we are to love, and how we still get love. Not only do we deserve love, and want love, we need love. The worst feeling in the world is to feel as if no one loves you. We go through stages in our lives sometimes where we feel like everyone hates us, or that we have been cut off from the world. We need love, we need to know that someone will always be there, that in our lowest points. We need to know that no matter what we do we will always be loved. If we know that, that is what we need as human beings then we should be giving that love to our neighbors.

Mark 12:31

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves, the first is loving god with our heart, mind, and soul. As Christians our entire foundation is build on love. We talked earlier about loving ourselves, and we love ourselves so much, more than we'll ever know or admit. What if we take all the love we give ourselves and shower someone else with it.

If we do not love as Christians, can we truly call ourselves Christian? As I mentioned before, some people are hard to love, some people cannot accept love, some people just are not loving. The way we love people should never be impacted by the way they love others, or the way they accept or refuse love. When you love someone, there is nothing they can do about it. When you love someone you cannot control it, you love them rather you agree with them or not, whether you get along with them all the time or not, you just love them. The same way God loves us, is the same type of love  we should have towards His people. We must learn how to love people with no strings attached, no conditions, no forfeiting, none of that. I love you, end of story and there’s nothing you can do about it.  

Reflection

1. Love looks different to everyone, we all give and experience love in different ways, what are some of the ways you have experienced love?
2. What does loving others look liek to you? It’s different for everyone, but how do you love?
3. How do you love the people that are hard to love?
4. Just for fun, if you know them, what are your love languages?

Prayer Time

Respond to God, and talk to HIm about what it means to love His people. Ask God to help you see others through His eyes. Love on as many people as you can. Ask God to show you how to love unconditionally. Remember that prayer is just a conversation between you and God.

Day 15: Loving People

I’m pretty sure we can all agree that love is not only beautiful but powerful. Love is more powerful than anger, pain, and definitely more powerful than hate. Love is a necessity and a want. I love talking about love because I just love. love. Since I’ve become a christian my desire to love people has gotten stronger. I find myself in positions all the time where I can’t help myself, I love you. I can’t hold grudges, it doesn’t sit right with me to stay angry, or waste my time hating people. I’m just a sappy love ball, i can’t help it and I love it. I’ve found that since I’ve experienced the love of God and understood what it means to be loved by God, I want everyone to feel this type of love, so why not give it to them?

-Dyamond

We all  deserve love, and I’m not talking about love in a romantic way, (we will get to that subject later in the year I promise). No matter who  you are, what you look like, what your social or financial status is,  where you came from, what you’ve done in your life. You deserve to be loved, unconditionally. Love doesn’t give up or end. Loving someone unconditionally means no matter what happens, there is nothing someone can do to make us stop loving them. That’s how God loves us, He never stops loving us, There’s nothing we can do to make Him love us less. He can’t help Himself, he loves us, even before we loved Him. Some people will never love God but He still loves them. It’s the same with loving people, sometimes we have to love people even though we know they will never love us back. That’s unconditional love, loving even though we know it will never be reciprocated. We don’t love just the people who love us, we love everyone. In the same way Jesus loved everyone He came across, it did not matter if they were Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans, tax collectors, thieves, murderers. Whoever they were Jesus came to save them as well. He went into the homes of people who were considered criminals and outcast. Jesus love is unconditional to all people, and therefore as we live like Christ we shall also love like Christ.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Mark 2:1-12

And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

This passage is one of my favorites, and not for the obvious reasons. I want to focus on the four men in this story. These four men were the reason the man who was paralyzed received healing. They went out of their way to make sure this man got to Jesus.  The could have left Him there when they got in the first time and said “we tried.”shrugged and walked away. Instead the did something so loving that Jesus had to honor their faith in the situation. These four men were carrying a paralyzed man on a bed, and when they could not get in through the door they went to the roof. When they got to the roof they put a hole in it, as hole big enough so that the man could fit through it. Then it says they ‘let down the bed.’ they didn’t drop it, they let it down, gently, making sure that he was safe. I’m not sure how long it took for the men to do all of this, but all I know is that they saw a need and met it. They knew that this man could not get to Jesus alone, so they took him. They went through all that trouble because they knew Jesus would heal him, they had faith that He could and would be healed.

Sometimes loving people is having faith for them. Sometimes we have to go out of our way for people, not because it makes us look like a good person but because we are here serve and love others. Sometimes love means sacrifice, we have to put ourselves on the line for others. We have to love people who we don’t agree with, we have to love the people we don’t want to be around all the time, we have to love the people who do us wrong and hurt us. Loving people isn't always pretty, but it is so much better than carrying around the burden of hate.  

1 John 4:20

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

How can we hate our neighbor who we see everyday, and profess to love God, whom we have never seen. Loving people is more that just a phrase, it’s a verb,an action word. We are always so quick to say, “I love you because I have to.” But just like anything else love is a choice. God chooses to love us, even when we give Him reason not to. We must simply choose love over hate, we must choose to love people, even when the make loving them the hardest challenge of life (so dramatic, I know). I know that some people are hard to love, but just imagine how hard we are to love, and how we still receive love unconditionally. We were all hard to love at one point in our lives. Not only do we deserve love, and want love, we need love. The worst feeling in the world into feel like no one loves you. We go through stages in our lives sometimes where we feel like everyone hates us, or that we have been cut off from the world. We need love, we need to know that someone will always be there, that in our lowest points. We need to know that no matter what we do we will always be loved. If we know that, that is what we need as human beings then we should be giving that love to our neighbors.

Mark 12:31

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves, the first is loving God with our heart, mind, and soul. As Christians our entire foundation is built on love. We talked earlier about loving ourselves, and we love ourselves so much, more than we'll ever know or admit. What if we take all the love we give ourselves and shower someone else with it. We learn to treat others well because we know how we want to be treated. We learn to love others because we know how we are and how we want to be loved.

If we do not love as Christians, can we truly call ourselves Christian? As I mentioned earlier some people are hard to love, some people cannot accept love, some people just are not loving. The way we love people should never be impacted by the way they love others, or the way they accept or refuse love. When you love someone, there is nothing they can do about it. When you love someone you cannot control it, you love them rather you agree with them or not, whether you get along with them all the time or not, you just love them. The same way God loves us, is the same type of love  we should have towards His people. We must learn how to love people with no strings attached, no conditions, no forfeiting, none of that. I love you, end of story and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Reflection

1. Love looks different to everyone, we all give and experience love in different ways, what are some of the ways you have experienced love?
2. What does loving others look liek to you? It’s different for everyone, but how do you love?
3. How do you love the people that are hard to love?
4. Just for fun, if you know them, what are your love languages?

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Prayer Time

Respond to God, and talk to HIm about what it means to love His people. Ask God to help you see others through His eyes. Love on as many people as you can. Ask God to show you how to love unconditionally. Remember that prayer is just a conversation between you and God.