I was thinking of an old friend who gave his kidney to his sister. I was telling the Lord how great that was, how most people wouldn’t do that. It will shorten his life, but he did it anyway. His scar stretches from one side of his waist to the other on his back. I immediately thought of the scripture: And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3
Anything we do in this world without Jesus is meaningless. Doesn’t matter how great it is, how noble. If we leave God’s love out, it is emptiness. Human love is not God’s love. It is so difficult to understand because we honor things that people do, we honor things that we do. We pat ourselves on the back to give ourselves honor and praise. We give others accolades for what they have done. All of those efforts, without the Lord will be soon forgotten and buried by dust.
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63
Finding meaning can be difficult. We search for it and we wrestle with the idea of what our life is for and about. Even once we find Christ the Savior, we can struggle with what our purpose is and which direction we are to go, how to best serve the Living God, Jesus the Christ.
We can’t go wrong with love.
The word love is in both of the great commandments:
And Jesus answered him,
The first of all the commandments is,
Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
And the second is like, namely this,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
There is none other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:29-31
Jesus made things simple. It takes some time and effort for us to absorb what He has taught us. We know in part and understand in part. There will come a time when we will understand things more fully. Until then, we must keep seeking the Lord to assure that our thoughts remain submissive to His thoughts and that we honor God with fear and humility even when we find His words tough to hear.
In our humanness, we can struggle to understand His Word.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit doesn’t teach us quickly. It can be a process.
Remembering that the greatest is love, God’s love will help us. We can bless others that don’t deserve it just like we didn’t deserve it. We can help others understand God’s love even though we may not always fully understand it. He said in His word, if we say we love God and hate our brother, we are lying. To demonstrate God’s love to others, especially the unlovely, that honors Him.
Don’t be a noisy gong:
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar:
for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
how can he love God whom he hath not seen? 1 John 4:20
Instead, live in Christ and His love and be a sweetsmelling savor.
And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us,
and hath given Himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 5:2