Ever had bad blood between a brother or sister? My end goal when I have an issue with a brother or sister is not to see them get their just desserts, but rather to work with them as effective teammates, truly able to rejoice and love one another, embracing over successes in Christ, for Christ.
"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." (Rom 13:8)
When I die, even if someone detests me, I want to die having a love for them. I can never control how someone feels about me, but I can control one thing: leaving only a debt of love. No bitterness or malice will exist in heaven, and I don't want to try and bring any of that along with me.
"For the entire Law is fulfilled in in this one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."—Gal 5:14
Filtering by Category: Love
Love is a verb. Love is a doing word.
"Teardrop," a rather pretty song, starts off saying, "Love, love is a verb, Love is a doing word." It seems that we can all understand that in relationships, loving words with no actions backing them up amount to...nothing. They are useless. Somehow, though, in our relationships with God, we often think of it as a one-way street, where God works in our lives, but we MUST NEVER MENTION working in our returned love.
James 2 explains [in part] that our faith, and thus our love for God, is a "doing word," saying, "What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?....But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead."
Working to serve God shouldn't be under compulsion, but out of impulsion. Our love and our faith must be doing words. I'm working to be a doer, because I want the most important relationship in my life—that of me and my Creator—to be the healthiest, most life-filled, most useful one I have.