Love & Serving

I always think it is just the coolest thing when God tells you a whole bunch of things that are all connected! This happened to me this weekend! 

Over the weekend I read Ernest Gordon's 'Through the Valley of the Kwai'. (amazing book! I would highly recommend reading it! (warning, there are a few horrible parts.) in the middle it will make you cry because it is horrible and just past that it will make you cry because it is so beautiful!). At church on Sunday, we were learning about being a servant. Then, on Monday morning, I was just reading Julie's post, which is about love.

All throughout the Bible it talks about doing good. Taking care of people. Serving. Isaiah 58 talks about what sort of things God wants us to do. All throughout the Bible we are called to serve others. Even Jesus came to serve.
Mark 10:45
'For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'

The two greatest commandments ever given to mankind were this: to love the LORD, and then to love our brother. 1 John 3 tells us how we can do that. All of the laws are summed up into this little verse, which tells us to treat each other as ourselves. Jesus says, whatever you do to the least of these, you do it for me.

1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

2 John 1:6
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. 

Clearly loving others is loving God. Love is an action. Serving. In some ways I think that loving and serving should be synonyms. To show our love for God we need to do what He commands us to do. Yes, the 10 commandments but Jesus said that most importantly we are to love God and love others. When you love God, you will begin to see people through His eyes and loving them is just a natural expression of loving Him. When you love someone, it's not about what you can get out of it, it's not even so much about how you feel (because you will feel let down, you will feel frustrated, hurt, maybe even angry), but it's about what you can do for the other person, how we can build them up and love them - serve them. 

Today I would challenge you to find one person, just one, and find some way to love/serve them. It doesn't have to be big, even little things show love, but find just some way to tell/show them that you love them. God will be smiling down at you :)

May we let Jesus shine through us today!
Emma 

(I hope I didn't jump around too much here... and it all makes sense :P)