LOVONG OTHERS AS WE LOVE OURSELVES

Repetition usually suggests importance. To love others as we love ourselves is one of the Bible's most repeated commands. Loving your neighbor is the opposite of selfishness. You don't have to work hard at becoming proficient at being selfish. Love, however takes a concious act. Fortunately, unselfishness is possible for us. Love points to a source of power, quite beyond us; namely God. When Jesus was asked by someone who his neighbor was, Jesus responded by telling the story of the good Samaritan. In this story a beat up man beside the road is helped by a complete stranger. That is love with the right motive.
It is not self-seeking.

LOVE HEALS

Unloved people are sick more often. I cannot think of anything more peace-filling, more soothing, more contentment inducing than to be loved. To be reassured of someone’s love, is like having a fresh shower with a cool breeze after a lengthy dry period that drains the earth of all moisture. Love is the most profound encounter with which God blesses us. Ah, it is like being wrapped in a soft blanket of God’s loving energy. Love impacts our mental and physical well-being. Without exaggeration, we can declare that it essential for our survival. Indeed, it mysteriously touches our emotions, but it also affects our body. Notice how much better you feel physically and how your mood improves when you receive a hug or affection, or when you have expressed your love to someone or participate in an act of love? Loving and being loved actually improves our level of health.

LOVE AS SERVANTHOOD

"What will I get out of it?" That, unfortunately, is an automatic question when anything is presented to us. A google on the subject of “personal success” will get you over twenty-six million hits. Googling “servanthood” will bring you one-tenth of that number of hits.
The difference reveals how self-centered we are. Our Master, Jesus, bored to that precise deficiency in all of us when he washed the disciples’ feet. And Peter, the natural leader of this group of young men, represents our own assumptions about who is really great. Peter thought it had to be those who are customarily honored by position. Jesus illustrated greatness and success as acts of serving other people, disregarding our own benefits. This means for us that we reconfigure our definitions of success to treasured acts of love through self-denial.

PARDON IS LOVE

Three days after I smoked my first cigarettes, my Dad confronted me. I was twelve at the time and appreciated how he spoke quietly (not always typical of Dad) and persuasively. He forgave me and did not punish me. His forgiveness showed me that he loved me. When the prodigal son returned home, after squandering his entire heritage, his father pardoned him. That was love. Our heavenly Father knows how many times we stepped over the line but took the punishment Himself in Jesus, and forgives us as we ask Him. Pardon is never deserved; it is always an act of mercy. We receive this merciful gesture from God every day. We are asked by the Lord, God, to extend pardon to all those who violate our rights and mistreat us, and that is authentic, life-proven love.

HOSPITALITY AS LOVE

Love is a many spleandored thing. It has countless ways of expressing itself.
Being hospitable is one of them. Willingness to share ourselves and what we have mirrors our hearts. We make sojourners to feel special when they come into our homes, are fully accepted, given the best food we have in the house, and if need be, are invited to sleep in one of our good beds. I would not argue that hospitality doesn't cost. Still, giving to a fellow spiritual traveler should never be seen as an imposition. It is quite the opposite. To provide comfort, sustenance and affirmation to someone bounces back as a pleasure for us as much as it does when we give our children a gift and see the sheer joy they express in receiving the gift. The sojourner may be a traveling missionary, a Sunday school teacher, a marginalized couple, or a lonely single. All can use some special treatment.

LOVE IS FOREVER

Think about it.
Most everything in life has a limited life span, and is temporarily useful. The value of love toward each other trumps all other virtues because it does not experience ruin, does not erode, does not collapse, or discontinue. Wisdom and prophesies, for example will stop, eloquent speech and even the gift of tongues will one day no longer be needed; even knowledge, which we prize so highly, will be passé. And in everyday practical terms, you just cannot go wrong in being a carrier of and practitioner of love. Bringing love into any circumstance is like beaming sunshine into a dark, dank, depressing, cloud-filled world. Ask the initiator of agape love, namely Jesus Christ to place in you His radical kind of love. It lasts.

HOW GREETINGS DISPLAY LOVE

First impressions last.
We forget that others size us up by how we greet them, just like we draw conclusions about people within the first minute of meeting them. What we say when we meet someone is a very small part of that impression.

Words alone do not convey love. “Hi, how are you?” may or may not be discerned as a caring gesture. But if you add direct eye contact, a gentle smile of both eyes and mouth, it will be picked up as genuine interest. Bring a firm shake of the hand with the above and now you have even a better chance of communicating genuine interest. Touch, though not all cultures or individuals appreciate a pat on the shoulder or a squeeze of the arm, often is associated with love. Then if the greeter can include some little gesture of kindness-hanging someone’s coat, a cold drink, an introduction to someone else, the new frien will feel cared for. Time taken to ask a question or two and the use of the person’s name will also make the connection meaningful. A kiss (touch of cheeks) if that is allowable in your culture, is a beautiful practice that shows genuine, personal interest.
Be real and greet from the heart.