Love is an Action – devotion

May 1, 2009
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May 1, 2009
Love Is an Action
by Rick Warren

In our Devotionals series, Pastor Rick Warren discusses the Bible passages that inspire him the most. Today’s Devotional is based on this passage:
“Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions” (1 John 3:18 NLT).

Love is something you do. Do you really love someone? Let’s see how you act toward that person. You show love by what you do, not just by what you feel.

Love is more than attraction and more than arousal. It’s also more than sentimentality, like so many of today’s songs suggest. By this standard, is love dead when the emotion is gone? No, not at all, because love is an action; love is a behavior.

Over and over again in the Bible, God commands us to love each other. And you can’t command an emotion. If I told you to “Be sad!” right now, you couldn’t be sad on cue. Just like an actor, you can fake it, but you’re not wired for your emotions to change on command. Have you ever told a little kid, “Be happy!” I’m trying, daddy!

If love were just an emotion, then God couldn’t command it. But love is something you do; it can produce emotion, but love is an action.

The Bible says, “Let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions” (1 John 3:18 NLT). We can talk a good act: “I love people.” But do we really love them? Our love is revealed in how we act toward them.

  • Quietpond

    Jesus said two things about love, they are:

    Matthew 5:44 (Whole Chapter)
    But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

    Matthew 5:46 (Whole Chapter)
    For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

    If I love only those that agree with me what manner of love is that?

    Love

    Quietpond

  • Quietpond

    I would think love is a wonderful thing. I feel great when people are kind and compassionate to me. The hardest thing is to be reciprical in the love I recieve.

    Jesus said that by will all men know that you are my decipiles if you love one another. But we have to love in the truth. We cannot give the commodity of the truth for any reason.

    In Det. 13 one would think it has nothing to do with love. But also if we love the truth, we love God. And certainly those in the world have a form of love for each other, but they do not love the truth.

    Love and truth go together if we are to play the melody right. If we don’t we might have a cult where members there love each other to death but do not have sentiment for the truth.

    In a certain somewhere it says that open rebuke is better than hidden love. Jesus said that if we are truly his decipile, we shall know he truth and the truth shall set us free.

    When we have the truth we have communion with God and him with us. And if we obey God’s commands then we know we love God, because it is something that he said. May truth and love aboung in your life. Amen.

    Quietpond

  • Quietpond

    I think the greatest commodity the world needs is love. I think I said so before, that I really do not know if people did not love me. I have a basic human need for it, like we need food and shelter and clothing.

    But we messed up in that what we need most is what we deprive each other the most love, mercy and compassion. It is a sad thing when it happens that the love in my heart has run out for someone.

    Perhaps after winning an argument or being right about a matter, it gives me no pleasure but to ask God to forgive me for being so unkind and unthoughtful.

    No. I don’t take pleasur in anything but to help my fellow human being. After all we share this common earth and sky and air. We all like nice thing and want the best for us and our loved ones.

    No. We are not to differend in humaness. We all sin an make mistakes and sometime so blindly and foolishily. I just want to ask God to renew my commitment to wash the feet of my fellow.

    Perhaps we don’t have the same ideologies or even whatever makes us different and what ever has separated us. I just want to tell my fellow human. “I love you and will pray for wellbeing…” May you be blessed. Amen.

    Love

    Quietpond





About the author:

Hi, my name is Heather Manning and I am the Customer Care Manager for ChristianBooksBibles.com. I am the mother to 5 children, two grown daughters, and three more blessings under 7 yrs old! I love working for this company because I get to talk to Christian brothers and sisters every single day and that is simply awesome.

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