“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”– Ephesians 4:32

 If it weren’t for love, most songwriters would be out of business. From “All I Need Is Love,” to “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” and “I Love You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” no topic has dominated the popular culture like love. But so far, no one has written a song entitled “Love Is a Commandment.”  We think of love as a mood, a feeling, a sentiment, an attitude, and a passion; and rightly so, for love may contain some or all of those emotions. But at its essence, love is the selfless commitment of putting the needs of others before one’s own wishes or welfare. It’s a choice we make and a command we obey. It’s the opposite of offended pride, bitterness, selfishness, rudeness, and egocentricity.
Perhaps the greatest barometer of love is kindness, so we should always be asking ourselves, “What have I done for someone else today?” 

The Bible says, “Love . . . is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4), and spiritual maturity comes as we realize that love is a command that results in a never-ceasing stream of kindness toward others. As someone once said, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
Love is the giving of oneself to another.–David Jeremiah

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

“And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:” – 1 Thess. 3:12

Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community. In Chicago a few years ago a little boy attended a Sunday school I know of. When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Sunday school, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way. A friend asked him why he went so far, and told him that there were plenty of others just as good nearer his home. 

“They may be as good for others, but not for me,” was his reply.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because they love a fellow over there,” he replied.

If only we could make the world believe that we loved them there would be fewer empty churches, and a smaller proportion of our population who never darken a church door. Let love replace duty in our church relations, and the world will soon be evangelized. – Moody’s Anecdotes

“And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;”– Phil. 1:9

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.“- Psalm 90:12

Today is not a day to be endured just in order to get over yonder to something better. The grass looks greener in the next pasture, but it is hard to tell which is our most important day. One day has one kind of opportunity, another has another. Let us buy up all the opportunities, for the days are evil.

We are apt to put a red circle around the wrong day. God’s calendar does not look like ours. The big day on ours may be without special significance on His. And the ordinary day, when “nothing much happened,” may, if redeemed to His glory, be a great day in His sight.

Do not try to evaluate any day, just make the most of it. What seems a dry and tedious interval, a desert stretch between here and yonder, while you burn with a fever to be into the middle of next week, may afford greater opportunity to know God and glorify Him than the glamorous day you are burning to reach.

Besides, this is the only day you can be sure of. “Boast not thyself of tomorrow.” And today is the only day of its kind. God never makes two alike. There will never be another day like it. You may call it “just another day,” but it isn’t. Make it count for God! – Vance Havner

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.”- Psalms 56:3
 
It is no unusual thing for the Lord’s people to be cast down, and filled with tormenting fears. They fear their faith is presumption, their hope delusion, and that they shall one day disgrace that holy name by which they are called. They fear to rely on a naked promise, and want comfortable feeling to underprop their faith. But they should take up the Psalmist’s resolution, ” What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Jehovah in Jesus is the only proper object of trust, and He should be trusted at all times. Beloved, it is well when we can say, “I will depend upon the faithful promise of my gracious God; I will rely on the free grace of my adorable Saviour; I will hope in covenant mercy for evermore; I will fly to my Father’s bosom and venture all in my Saviour’s hands.” Let us trust in God, in opposition to frames and feelings. Let us trust in covenant love, though providence appears to frown. Our God has said, “Trust ye in the Lord forever.” Here is our warrant, let us seek grace to say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him.” – James Smith, 1840

 Oh, let me then at length be taught
 What I am still so slow to learn,
 That God is love, and changes not,
 Nor knows the shadow of a turn:
 To cast on Him my anxious cares,
 And triumph o’er my doubts and fears.

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346