Curing What Ills Us

I know that I don’t have the answers about how to fix the ills of society, especially a society where human life seems to mean so little.. and hate seems to run so deep.

But I think I know where to start. It begins with you and me... with us. It starts with faith, hope and love... It continues by stepping up and shining a light into the darkness, and truly loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength... and then, loving our neighbor as ourselves.

We have to change our hearts and our mindsets. And then that moves to loving action... We have to act to bring about change.

But if love changes things... what is love?

After you read today’s passage through the first time, how would you define love?

Now, let’s try something a bit different...

Every time that you see the word “LOVE” replace it with your name.

For example, “Love is patient. Love is kind.” becomes “Marty is patient. Marty is kind,” when I do it.

Does that change the definition any? Does that change our perspective on what love is?
Does that resonate within us anywhere at all?

What jumps out at you?
What doesn’t fit?
Where are the gaps?
Does it define me even when I’m angry, frustrated, disappointed, scared?

Can I make that a part of who I am? Do/can/will people see the love in me?

Now read it a third time. This time, replace “LOVE” with “JESUS.”

“Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind.”

How does that change things?

Love Defined.

May He be the cure...

Keep the Faith... Carpe Diem

1 Corinthians 13

“1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”