Sometimes …
Love means letting others own the consequences of their own choices.
Category: Simple Love
Unless compassion is combined with steely-eyed realism, I trust neither.
God never intended for either of those gifts to work in isolation.
Biblical love turns its own cheek …
While protecting other cheeks.
We have reduced love to what we feel.
Scripture elevates love to what we do.
Corrosive compassion does for others what they otherwise should do for themselves.
Although trying to solve another’s problems may provide short term help …
People ultimately learn best when allowed to own the consequences of their own decisions.
It may seem harsh, but in the long run it’s often the most compassionate and loving thing you can do.
Charities, social programs and church ministries have their place …
But not as substitutes for individual hospitality and personal acts of kindness.
Real love …
Invokes endless fascination.
New Testament unity is rooted in diversity …
As we honor God’s differing gifts, callings and motivations in each other above our own.
Insisting on “unity” through uniformity, conformity or hierarchy, however, is a lie.
Delight and gratitude are barometers of healthy relationships …
With God, our spouse and others.
Tired of the “institution” and looking instead for the simplicity of relational participatory church …
But your friends aren’t interested?
Consider opening your life, your home and your kitchen table to the lost, the unseen, the ignored, the marginalized, and the lonely.
After all, if your respectable friends aren’t interested in your hospitality, who does Jesus say to invite instead? The poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame …
Along with those living besides highways and hedges. Luke 14:12-24
If you know none, then get out of your comfort zones!
So go to the kinds of places Jesus went and reach out to the kinds of people with whom he hung …
Not through a “program” but with authentic friendship.
There is no true church, real faith, sacrificial love or advance of God’s Kingdom without hospitality – especially to those considered the least among us …
Not only by the world, but often by our own top-down, agenda-driven “churches.”
Rather than their impersonal “programs,” which try to help “outsiders” without truly embracing them but treating them as mere objects of “ministry” …
My wife and I have opened our home and table as places of hospitality over the years – offering respect, dignity, and genuine friendship to all who accepted our invitations to come.
As a result, fellowships emerged and lives transformed – including our own.
Hospitality: The missing ingredient.
Simple!
Don’t confuse love with nice …
Because sometimes nice is not enough.
In marriage, the greatest gift we can give each other is the ability to love and be loved.
Wounds from past hurts, wrongs and regrets brought into marriage make this all too rare these days.
To give and receive the gift of love, then …
Care enough to pursue emotional health and spiritual wholeness.
Plumbline Faith 