Love
Treat Your Neighbours With love
When I was growing up, my father use to say, “No matter who they are or what they do, treat your neighbors with love.”
I didn’t fully understand what he meant until one Sunday on our way to church, when we spotted someone shoveling corn from our crib into a battered old truck. Dad stopped the car and got out. The man looked up and froze.
I knew this man. Everybody in town suspected him of stealing their gas! No one had ever confronted him for fear of his violent temper. Now we’d caught him red-handed. What was Dad going to do?
“If that’s not enough,” my father said evenly, “come back tomorrow. Take as much as you need. Remember, you’re my neighbor.”
The man dropped his shovel and hung his head.
He never stole from us or anyone else in town again, as far as I know. Perhaps he learned how to be a good neighbor that day. I know I did.
Louis Lehman, Albany, Oregon. Quoted from: home.att.net/~scorh3/GoodNeighbor.html
What Does He See?
What
does he see
in me
that
even though he knows
my sinfullness,
he says,
“You are precious
to my heart”?Wellsprings p227 – Anthony de Meool
God Is Love
Charles Spurgeon once went down to visit a friend in the country. His friend had built a new barn, and above it he had placea a weather-vane bearing the text, “God Is Love”. “Do you mean”, asked spurgeon, “that God’s love is as changeable as the wind?” “No”, said his friend, “I mean that God is love, whichever way the wind blows!”
1500 Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching – Pub Marshall PickeringA Friend Is …
A friend is one who knows you as you are,
Understands where you’ve been,
Accepts who you’ve become,
And still invites you to grow.
Spirit Level by Ann Bird, Methodist Publishing p54Fathers Love Letter
I have used this in our Sunday worship as well as our small groups and it has always been well received and touched many hearts.
More information, the text of the letter and other resources as well as downloadable quality copies of the video are available at: http://www.fathersloveletter.com/Forty Days Of Love
Have you ever been confronted with a message that changed your perspective? One church chose as its Lenten theme, “Forty Days of Love.” Each week members of the congregation were encouraged to show their love and appreciation in different ways. The first week they were encouraged to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to their lives.
After the first service a man in the congregation wanted to speak to his pastor. The pastor describes the man as “kind of macho, a former football player who loved to hunt and fish, a strong self-made man.” The man told his pastor, “I love you and I love this church, but I’m not going to participate in this Forty Days of Love stuff. It’s OK for some folks,” he said, “but it’s a little too sentimental and syrupy for me.”
A week went by. The next Sunday this man waited after church to see his pastor again. “I want to apologize for what I said last Sunday,” he told him, “about the Forty Days of Love. I realized on Wednesday that I was wrong.”
“Wednesday?” his pastor repeated “What happened on Wednesday?” “I got one of those letters!” the man said. The letter came as a total surprise. It was from a person the man never expected to hear from. It touched him so deeply he now carries it around in his pocket all the time. “Every time I read it,” he said, “I get tears in my eyes.” It was a transforming moment in this man’s life. Suddenly he realized he was loved by others in the church. This changed his entire outlook. “I was so moved by that letter,” he said, “I sat down and wrote ten letters myself.”
Quoted from: www.devotions.net/devotions/files/2001/01jan/23.htmThe Good Samaritan
A Sunday School teacher was telling the story of the Good Samaritan to her class of 4-5 year olds.
She was making it as vivid as possible to keep the children interested in her tale.
Then she asked the class, “If you saw a person lying on the roadside all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?”A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, “I think I’d throw up.”
How Much You Care
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
- Accepting Others, Caring for others, Christian Character, Commitment - cost of, Forgivenness, Giving, Love, Making a difference, Rejection
The Scorpion
A man was meditating by the river. One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again, the bite swelling his hand painfully and giving him much pain. A man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the meditator, “Hey old man, what’s wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don’t you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?” The old man calmly replied, “My friend, just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save.”…