Wednesday, February 14, 2007

love me; love my dog

my mother-in-law has a very old Maltese named barkley. He's getting senile and mean (not to mention the fact that he's even outlived his own bladder control). But she loves her dog. Now some of you may know how i feel about pets (or should i say how my eyes, nose, and throat feel about pets? i'm allergic to most) even the pets i'm not allergic to i have a hard time warming up to. But i try to be careful around my mother-in-law, because she really does love her dog.

My father-in-law is always saying that he never knew the truth of the phrase, "love me; love my dog" until now (i admit i've never knew there was such a phrase) But it's definitely a phrase that carries truth! All of us in the family try to tolerate old barkley because he's so loved by my mother-in-law and we love her.

On this Valentine's Day i got to thinking of God's greatest commandments. Jesus said there was really only one, but kinda two. "love the LORD your God with all your heart...." that one makes a lot of sense. Then he said, "love your neighbor as yourself."

I've noticed that it is very difficult for most Christ-followers to take God seriously on the second one. Loving God sounds great. Loving yourself that's not bad either. but loving others? Hear me on this
If you aren't actively "loving others," then please start questioning the sincerity of your love for God.

Because these aren't really two different commands. They are one in the same, Jesus remarks that this "second command" is just like the first one. See, it's the "love me; love my dog" principle. I CANNOT say i truly love my mother-in-law (and i do!) if I refuse to consider her love for her pup. If we want to love God then that means we don't just tell him over and over in the words of a praise song or hymn, but that means we consider who/what he loves and work our tails off trying to love those things too.

Here's the big point: though God loves it when we pray, worship, make good choices, are generous, etc., the Scriptures teach that there is ONE THING that God loves above all... people, not just "good" people or "Christian" people, but all people (look here too).

I am definitely not perfect in my love for God (and by extension those that God loves) but i am getting less tolerant of Christ-followers who can claim to love God greatly but are going through life either ignoring or outright disdaining those that God loves. I'm assuming that most of us just don't know better. But now we do! Please don't claim to love God while you're punting his loved ones across the room, you're only deceiving yourself. I ask that anyone reading this does a heart-check and a scripture-check (i've provided references above as links) and begin loving God in a new way today... after all, it IS valentine's day :)

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6 Comments:

At 2/14/2007 11:03:00 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

So, does this mean you actually love me too?

 
At 2/15/2007 03:13:00 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

So well said! Thank you.

Maybe part of the problem, too, is to really get to know God's heart and His passionate love for people - and to come to understand WHICH people the words about His love refers to. I've heard many opinions expressed about who God loves and when. Scripture leaves little room to escape the longing in God's heart for all, but so many people seem to miss that part. When we begin to recognize God's true heart in scripture, we have no excuse, and we see how much of the problem is in our own hearts.

I have heard some argue that the parables you note are really about those who became believers and then wandered away. In that case, it might help to recognize the timing....at the time these parables were spoken, everyone was a new believer, with hardly enough time to wander, since Jesus was the one speaking the parables.

May God erace all our excuses so we can really see the wonder of His amazing love!

 
At 2/19/2007 07:26:00 AM , Blogger Dion said...

i guess i have backed myself into a "no-win" situation with roscoe... i sure do love his people....

grrr....

yes roscoe, then i guess i love you too.

 
At 3/05/2007 08:41:00 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I guess this means loving your broken family members too... that's hard. We know their brokeness too well...

 
At 6/14/2007 12:47:00 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Boy, you know whoever you are that wrote this, I salute you. I must ask forgiveness, because I have heard the Holy Spirit many times almost screaming out to me, "Hey, you love me....you love these peeps down here." Once I had to be hospitalized to get off a drug, that a shrink prescribed me, xanax, and Y'ALL!!! not an hour of each day would go by that these mentally damaged people be starin' at me, and Jesus Himself would say to my soul, Marti-girl!!!!!!!!!!!
I gave me life for these people.
It gave me boldness, I got to minister every day, and some other patients joined in with me, too!!
I need to do that again....
bye..

 
At 6/28/2007 01:39:00 PM , Blogger Dion said...

true, go get 'em :)

 

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