Come and See – Affection in the Home Is Priceless!
Have an open house full of love!
Does it seem like it is getting harder and harder to find people in authority that can be trusted? Most of us are simply trying to live a good life, raise a loving family, and contribute to a better future for our kids and others. Do you agree?
God’s love has taken a bad rap in recent decades as some don’t see His lovingkindness at all. They think He is cruel and uncaring for allowing pain in the world, even though Jesus told His disciples in person ( and us through the Bible) that “in this world we would have trouble”. And we know that to be true. The innocents suffer at times alongside the guilty. Then there are those times we don’t know the innocent from the guilty. But I want to reveal a plan to you.
The plan is this – we come to know the love of God personally and give it away freely…starting at home with our closest relatives and friends. This plan allows each of us to play a role in changing our culture to clearly see and access God’s love in the here and now.
To have affectionate care and give it we need look no further than Jesus Christ and the salvation He offers. “God loved us and sent His Son.” I John 4:10 (my 3 year old grandson quoted that verse to me from His AWANA class a few weeks ago.) “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.”(John 3:16) Then there is Matthew 5:45 letting us know that God gives life and gifts to the just and the unjust.
I John 4:19 reveals that the love we have to give away is from Him in the first place.
Where do we begin to win back the culture and restore Biblical morality, kindness, peace, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control? Come to Jesus and ask Him to reveal His love to you and through you to those closest to you. I know it is a struggle when in this life “the love of many” is growing cold. (Matthew 24:12) So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to quit asking God for personal healing and renewal? Are we going to quit praying for the nation we love so deeply. Are we going to throw away all we’ve been given by the leaders who came before us and sacrificed so much?
I am determined by the grace of God to stay on mission until I can’t go any longer. I and my wife are determined to love well, starting at home; to forgive others for not loving; to ask for forgiveness from God and others when we fail to love accurately; and to listen to our kids and grandkids as well as tell them the truth in as loving a way as possible to warn them of the cultural pitfalls and sin-soaked elixirs Satan offers.
Just start by being kind to your wife and kids, by listening more and talking less, by communicating to understand more that trying to be understood, and to put the needs of others before your own needs, by hugging and holding your wife and kids, by looking at them in the eye and declaring your love for them as you draw them close to your heart. Remember this – that kind of affection may not have been experienced in your own past, but it has always come from the heart of God. As Jesus is your Savior and friend and has given you Holy Spirit to live inside your life, God’s love already resides in you. Let it out.