Good Morning Garden

Love By Your Actions

Did you know that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had more than six hundred man-made laws they were required to obey? People couldn’t keep all those laws; it was impossible. Yet the rulers believed that those laws had to be obeyed in order to win God’s favor.

But Jesus summed up God’s law, scripture and prophesy with only two commands: “Love the Lord your God” and “Love your neighbor.” And he used a special all-encompassing word for love, a word that includes everyone. We are to love our neighbors, he said, even though they may have a different color skin, ethnic background, or language; even though they look different, walk differently, or act differently.

The Greek word for love that Jesus used implies action. It is not a passive word; it is an action word. We are to love by our actions. We are also to help our neighbors who are poor. The gospel of Christ has no meaning unless it is applied to those who are in need.

What will you do today to show God’s love by your actions?

Luke 10:27 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”

Michael & Alison Smitherman
The Singing NetSurfers
I will sing to my Lord as long as I live, I will sing
praise to my God while I have my being.

If we say we love God and our neighbor, yet do not act on that love, we are but a “clanging gong, a noisome cymbal”. And who is our neighbor? They are the weak, downtrodden, despised and alienated. In short, it is everyone, but especially those in need, pain or those suffering discrimination, bias or separation. Yes, the wealthy, wise and beloved are also our neighbor and deserve our love. Yet Jesus said that we have helped or rejected Him by how we treat the “least among us” not the great among us.

So today, let us put our love into action toward those less fortunate than ourselves. Then the sound of our love will not be a clanging gong but a beautiful song. And, it will sound like a heavenly harp to the ears of those less fortunate ones who experience our love as it flows from us in our actions.

Acting on love,

Stan