A New Commandment

I was reading in the gospel of John, and the commandment Jesus gave His diciples on the night of his betrayal shows us just how important love is to God.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my diciples, if ye have love one to another.

John 13:34-35

This is astounding that God wants us to love one another with the same love He has for us. In the old testament God commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That commandment seems much easier than the command Jesus gave us. How can we possibly love others as Jesus did? His love was sacrificial, unconditional, and passionate. He also forgives, (without ever remembering our forgiven sins again. How many of us can say we can forgive and forget?)
He was patient, kind, always compassionate......

I could go on and on about the wonderful love of our Savior, but I am sure you get the picture. I know I don't love anywhere near how Jesus loved. I get so impatient with my family, and even strangers at times. How often do we get angry at other drivers, store clerks, restaurant servers, and the list could continue. Jesus wouldn't be raising His fist and cursing someone who cut Him off while driving.

So how can we become Christians who loves as our Lord loves? Can we really learn to love as Jesus did? What would this love look like? Could we grow in love so that it becomes part of our daily lives? And most important just what would this love cost us? That is what I am endeavoring to find out.

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, and long suffering. Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity (love), which is the bond of perfection.

Colossians 3:12-14

Love is the most God-like state of the soul. God is not faith or hope; God is love. The Eternal does not believe or anticipate, but He does love--He IS love. Love is the life of the soul. It warms every vein and beats in every pulse.
David Thomas

And now abideth faith, hope, charity (love), these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

I Corinthians 13:13

Love

And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?
And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is Hear, O Isreal; 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 strength: this is the first commandment.
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy nieghbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
Mark 12: 28-31 KJV

We really need to think about this kind of love for a minute. God expects us to love Him above all else in our lives, even ourselves. Do we really, REALLY love Him that way? I know I want
to love Him above all else, with all my strength, mind might, soul, and heart. Everyday the decisions I make, the things I do, make me realize I fall far short in fulfilling this commandment.
I also know I don't love others like I should. Would I give up what I have to help someone else?
I don't know. I think I probably wouldn't if what I was giving up was important to me. It is not as easy to follow these two commandments as it appears on first reading them. I am going to be doing a study on love in the Bible in the next few weeks, to help me to better understand what God really expects from me as His child. That is what I really want, to be all that God wants me to be.

And time marches on....

It seems so strange that this year is almost over. It is supposed to be in the mid 30's tonight.
I am not ready for the cold weather. This time of year always depresses me. All the leaves are falling and the plants are dying. The year is coming to a close. It just makes me realize how fast life is going, and how little I seem to get accomplished. Some days I don't get anything done. Since I stopped working it is hard for me to feel productive. It is also so much easier to put off tasks that need done, knowing I don't have to go to work so I can always do them "later". Then I never seem to get them done.

I am trying to get my CD's organized. That is a monumental task! I have so many. I want to get them into cd cases so I can locate them when I want to. I have so much clutter I need to take care of. Just getting started is not easy. I am hopefully going to get to going on that this weekend. The men are going to work in the yard and I am going to try to get some heavy duty cleaning done in the house.

It has been a while

Well, here I am doing what I didn't want to do. I haven't written for over a week. I have not been doing anything special. Emily has been spending alot of time here, so I have been pretty busy with her. I am even getting behind on my email.

Right now I know that not very many people are seeing this blog, but I find it hard to really express myself. I want this to be an exercise in getting my thoughts down. It is alot harder than I thought it would be.

I am having alot of trouble with my eating behavior. I really need to lose some weight, but it is so hard to eat right. I get so discouraged. It is such a never ending battle. I have lost weight so many times, just to gain it back every time. I wish I could figure this thing out. I suppose if it was easy no one would be fat.