daily IMPACT by selahV today

LOVE DOESN'T KEEP SCORECARDS

Every morning Carl rose to make the coffee.  While it perked, he warmed his wife's mug.  Then he delivered it to her in bed along with the morning newspaper and returned to the kitchen to make breakfast.  After breakfast they read their Bibles together, had a devotional time, prayed for all the missionaries having birthdays that day, and prayed for one another.  It's the way they began their day every day they were together. 

"Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily." 1 Corinthians 4.  Amplified.

Very few people knew of this ritual.  Carl's humble dedication to making the first part of his wife's day inviting and peaceful was one of hundreds of ways he manifested the love he had for her during their forty-plus years of marriage.  It was a little thing....nothing one would find reported in the frontpage of her morning newspaper.  Isn't this the kind of love we need to express for one another?  Little things.  Things that call no attention to ourselves.  Things done with another's pure pleasure, comfort and encouragement in mind.

When we show love we do not seek to bring attention to ourselves.  Love is not a look-at-me-and-what-I-did kind of thing.  It does not keep scorecards to mount and display for public inspection.  Love just loves and then loves some more.  selahV

[© SelahV Today, 2008]

   

   

THIS IS NEVER LOVE...

"I can't help it," she says. "I want his undivided attention.  I love him.  If he loves me, shouldn't he want to be with me?  I don't want him to have other friends."  Even when he talks to other people, it upsets her.  He goes to work and she calls him several times a day to interrogate him.  What is he doing?  Who is he talking to?  Where did he go for lunch?

But that is not all.

He reads the paper and she slams cabinet doors.  He watches a football game and she pouts in the bedroom.  He talks to his mother on the phone and she is infuriated.  He gets a commendation from work and she doesn't congratulate him.  He helps a neighbor mow his lawn and she reminds him of the bedroom she wanted him to paint.  He plays with their children and she turns up the volume on the television.  He buys her flowers for a surprise and she is suspicious of his motives. 

"Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy;..." 1 Corinthians 13:4ab.  Amplified.

Some folks think if they say they love someone that it makes it so.  The wife above insists that she loves her husband; but this is not love.  Her actions reveal otherwise. 

This kind of jealousy is not uniquely specific to wives or husbands.  It can be that of one Christian towards another.  Children with children.  Parents with children and children with parents.  Coworkers with coworkers.  Friends with friends.  God loves us but His love is big enough to allow us to love others and have relationships that benefit others.  Love encourages, "love is not jealous".  Love trusts.  selahV

[© SelahV Today, 2008]

   

CAN THIS BE LOVE?

At first she understood.  At first she knew he was there.  At first they shared memories and tender embraces.  Then stroke after stroke took more and more of her mind.  Every day for 15 years her husband went to the nursing home and fed her breakfast, lunch and dinner.  He was faithful to visit her and see that she had the best of care he could provide.  She could give back nothing.  No conversation.  No reassuring touches of gratitude.  No smiles.  He read his bible to her.  He prayed for her.  Her comfort was his comfort.  Then one day he buried her.  It wasn't long after she went to be with the Lord that Alzheimer's erased the pain of his loss from his mind.  And a few years later he died.

"Love endures long and is patient and kind;..." 1 Corinthians 13:4b.

Through sickness and in health, till death do they part.  Such love is of God.  Never wavering, steadfast, unconditional.  Simply loving today, tomorrow, forever.  With patience and kindness.  This love is what lasts.  selahV

[© SelahV Today, 2008]   

 

SO WHAT IF I HAVE NOTHING ELSE...

  He had everything.  He had position, status, education and wealth.  He gave generously to various charities, he fought for the rights of others, he even served his country.  He attended church faithfully.  But at the end of his journey he had few people attend his funeral who could say, "He loved me."

"And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficienct] faith so that I can remove mountains, and have not love (God's love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).  Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God's love in me), I gain nothing."  1 Corinthians 13:2,3. Amplified.

Many today are enamored with their own gifts--the abilities they have, the knowledge they have, the understanding they've been given, the faith they have shown.  Many people revel in their own generosity and rely on their sacrifices as proof of their relationship with God.

Yet, Paul cautions the Corinthians, and us, to keep first things first.  Love is the most enduring portion of God.  Love.  God's love.  Without God's love in me, "I am nothing".  Without God's love in me, "I gain nothing".

Each time I examine myself in light of this familiar passage I am given pause.  I pray all the more fervently to be so filled with Jesus that my love is manifested with every fiber of my being.  I long to release the love of God in me to the world around me.  And so very often I fall short.  So very often I question how loving I am.  Pure love, God's love, is all that endures from the things we do and say and think.

So what if I have love and nothing else?  I have everything.  May this be my highest aim.  selahV

[© SelahV Today, 2008]

WHAT GOOD ARE TONGUES...

When I first became a Christian I read several books on speaking in tongues.  I thought I had to speak in "tongues" to be complete as a Christian.  I was so wrong.  As I studied God's Word, I learned that what I craved and believed necessary in my faith was simply not important.  The important thing was that I love others as myself.

"If I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God's love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." 1 Corinthians 13:1.

It took me quite awhile to comprehend that God could love me as myself.  It took me more time to learn how to love myself.  Yet one of the greatest testing times in my life was loving people who didn't love me and others I loved--people who were hateful and mean.  For some reason the most unloveable people were continually placed in my pathway.  The folks that others couldn't love were drawn to me.  Two of the most important verses to me in the Bible were Matthew 5:46-47:  "For if you love those who love you, what reward can you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do that?  And if you greet only your brethren, what more than others are you doing?  Do not even the Gentiles (the heathen) do that?"

The challenge for a Christian is not loving the folks who love us.  The challenge is loving those who hate us and despitefully use us.  If we cannot do that, then all the knowledge of tongues and is worthless.  In other words...my utterances are pure noise and do not mean one single thing in the kingdom of God.  selahV

[© SelahV Today, 2008]    

TO LIVE IN PEACE

As a child I use to sing a song with the phrase, "I've got peace like a river in my soul".  Yet, most days in my life I lived in the midst of turmoil and word-wars.  The battles began the moment my dad came home.  They did not stop when he left.  For hours afterwards, I heard the battle rage on as my step-mother muttered and sputtered, cursed, slammed and yelled.  Today I know that a serious mental illness sparked and fueled her rants.  But as a child, my only solace was in retreat to my room where I'd stick my fingers in my ears to drown out the noise.  Often I escaped to the treehouse till the storm passed by.  If that was not an option, I'd say nice things and try my best to be a good girl and not provoke further irritation in her.

Today I have a better escape and another way of looking at turmoil.

"Strive to live in peace with everybody and pursue that consecration and holiness without which no one will [ever] see the Lord." Hebrews 12:14.  Amplified.

Strive to live in peace.  Pursue consecration and holiness.  No matter what war we face in life, we have the peace of God to carry us through it.  Our pursuit of a holy and consecrated submitted life to God and His will, helps us to live in the peace He wants for us.  As a child, I did not realize that peace in God was available.  Today I do.  I am an adult and today I strive to live at peace with everyone.  When that is not possible, I have the assurance that God will keep me through the raging tempests till the storm passes by.  selahV

[© SelahV Today, 2008]

CRIPPLED WITHOUT THE BRACE

You can break your leg or ankle or foot and never have it reset.  You can stay off the broken portion of your body and bones will knit back together.  But you in all likelyhood, it will not heal properly; it will be out of alignment with the rest of your body.  Some folks have even had their legs set and had to go back and have it broken again to avoid pain and a noticeable limp.

Casts, and braces are annoying.  They are cumbersome and impede a person's activities who wears one.  When my daughter broke her tibia in a skiing accident, she had an eight-month old baby who needed her.  Holly had a weird cast that kept her leg at an odd angle.  Literally, she needed help with everything.  The worst part of her recovery process was the immobility, the inability to bend and pick up her daughter, to carry her, to carry food, to sit and feed her.  But had she not submitted to the ever-present brace on her leg, a crippled leg would have been the result.

"...cut through and make firm and plain and smooth, straight paths for your feet [yes, make them safe and upright and happy paths that go in the right direction], so that the lame and halting [limbs] may not be put out of joint, but rather may be cured." Hebrews 12:13, Amplified.

As Christians, we need Jesus every moment of our day to keep our lives aligned with His will.  In His glorious wisdom and foreknowledge, He didnot leave us without a Brace.  He left us with His Holy Spirit to guide, to teach and to correct us.  His Spirit lives within us and His Word gives us added support.  God's continually correcting us.  He is always bracing us.  Sometimes we get weary and want to lay aside the corrective braces and casts in our lives.  But we must submit to them or our spiritual lives will be as a broken bone left to heal on its own.  We will become dislocated from the righteous purpose God intends for us.  The perfect plan He has for our lives is thwarted.  Submission is the key to living in harmony with God and making straight the paths before us each day.  selahV

[© SelahV Today, 2008]   

BRACE YOURSELF...

When my grandson, Ryan, broke his neck and back while riding on a motorcycle last year, he had to wear a brace for several weeks.  Prior to receiving the cumbersome brace, he could not move without extreme pain.  And had he moved without the brace, his chance of being paralyzed was a near certainty.  Ryan's accident was on a Friday afternoon and he was airlifted to Oklahoma City.  He came home on Saturday from the hospital and went to church on Sunday.  He had a perfect reason for staying home; he was in a lot of pain.  But he wanted to go to church. The same thing happened when he broke his ankle the year before.  He never let it hinder his walk with the Lord.  He never whined or questioned his lot in life.

For two years running my grandson has gone to Falls Creek Youth Camp in braces.  Once in an upper-body and neck brace, and once in a leg cast.  This is the first year he is able to participate in all the activities at camp.  He's there right now.

"So then, brace up and reinvigorate and set right your slackened and weakend and drooping hands and strengthen your your feeble and palsied and tottering knees."  Hebrews 12:12

We all have circumstances in which we've met with consequences due to poor decisions and impulsive choices.  We all have times in life in which we are tested and face difficulties.  But we have a Brace that strengthens us in our weakness.  We have a Crutch we can lean on till we are able to walk on our own with Him guiding every step of the way.  May we be encouraged that a day will come when what we endure will be rewarded with greater wisdom than we could possibly imagine.  selahV

[note, photo is not my grandson but it looks like the brace he wore]

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008] 

   

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE BEING CORRECTED?

Maybe not.

Have you found, as I, that most folks hate to be corrected?  They don't like others telling them where they go wrong and what they should do.  When faced with a choice between what man wants to do and what God wants him to do, quite often a man will follow the dictates of his own desires.  He justifies a critical spirit.  He compromises a truth.  He sugar-coats a bitter heart and white-washes sinful acts.

What good is correction and discipline?  How can one have joy in the process?  Well, most folks will attest that it is not a pleasant experience.  And to be honest, the Bible says that, too.  So when met with the corrective intervention of God, most often folks balk and will not submit to His discipline.  Even though a child of God sincerely wants to be what God wants, they don't jump up and down in the midst of correction.

"For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness--in conformity to God's will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God]. Hebrews 12:11  Amplified.

So discipline is not fun.  And when one is going through disciplinary process, it may seem grievous and painful.  But later it returns great reward of righteousness; it manifests much fruit.  Correction restores, rejuvenates, and develops the character.  If we don't like it when we're going through it, others should certainly like us better afterwards, don't you think?  selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]        

WHEN YOU ARE EXEMPT FROM CORRECTION

It was 2:00 a.m.  I heard a noise outside my office window.  I peeked through the blinds and saw two boys about the age of twelve skateboarding down the street.  The noise had come from my neighbor's yard.  They'd been using her sloping driveway as a launch ramp.  Where were those boys' parents?

On another day I drove down my street and there in the middle of the road was a group of children.  Some circled their bikes around and around. Others walked in slow motion; I had to stop and wait till they decided to clear a path for me to pull into my driveway.  Two boys stared at me like I was rudely infringing upon their territory.  My garbage cans were empty from the trash pick-up that morning.  When I went to retrieve them, one boy about the age of 14 went riding by my cans and kicked one over.  As he rode down the street they all broke into peals of laughter and ran after him.

I'd venture to say that these children received very little discipline in their lives.  Oh, it's probably safe to say they may have been corrected at times.  But I'd guess they had not been disciplined to follow the corrections.  Then again, I might be wrong.  In this day and age, many parents set no boundaries.  They enforce no rules.  Many kids have no curfews and face no consequences for their actions.  As children of God, we have a Father in Heaven who corrects us and disciplines us and expects much more from us.

"You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons.  For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline?  Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all [of God's children] share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons [at all].  Moreover we have earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded [to them] and respected [them for training us].  Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so [truly] live?  For [our earthy fathers] disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them; but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness." Hebrews 12:7-10

And as God's children, we must submit our will to His will.  The lost and illegitmate will see no reason to follow God's commands or be guided by the principles set forth in His Word.  But we are His own and we are expected to live according to all the teachings of Christ.  To be exempt from correction and discipline, you cannot be a child of God.  selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]