Give Love Away
Helen Keller said, “The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard but must be felt in the heart.” Helen Keller could not hear or see, which makes that an even more profound and beautiful statement.
We can live our lives every day, but if we don’t have a passionate heart for Christ, we can give up and miss the mark. As Christians we know that our calling is to love people and use things. In today’s world that goes against the flow—it is counterculture.
The Book of Acts is the story of the first church made up of Jewish believers. They had given their lives to Christ in a culture that in many ways was similar to the one we live in today. Scripture tells us:
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. 43 Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 44 Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, 45 and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need (Acts 2:42-45 nkjv).
These believers got together in Jerusalem, and they brought all of their stuff and shared everything with one another. What would happen if those of us who are followers of Christ made intentional decisions to love people above all else. What if our love for God grew into a passion and perspective that the things that we have are only instruments to be used to reach people for Christ? In reality, our goal would be to give love away—to demonstrate the love of God to others by using the things God blessed us with to reach them at their point of need.
Honestly, as I am thinking about this, I am convicted because of all the stuff that I have. Think about all the stuff that we each have, the stuff that we collect, the things that are important to us. I asked myself, how can I use things and love people which led me to ask five questions that each of us need to ask ourselves in order to give love away.
- Do I more highly value those who can help me in life than those who can’t help me at all?
- Think of a time when you gave up something that was of real value to you in order to meet the need of another person, and then ask the question, why did I do that?
- What one descriptive word or phrase do you think would be spoken most about you at your funeral?
- Today, have you given more thought to meeting the needs of other people or have you given more thought to the things that you’ve got to get done?
- How likely is it that you would spend money from your own pocket?
Everywhere Jesus went, He gave love away. Most of the lives He touched weren’t people that were going to add value to Him. It was all about what He could do for them.
My encouragement to you this month is to do ONE THING in the next 30 days that would exemplify your heart’s attitude to love people and use things. Choose to give love away. I believe it would really bring pleasure to Christ in our lives.
ONE THINGS you can do to give love away:
- Focus on the need of someone less fortunate than yourself and do ONE THING without expecting anything in return.
- Find one person today and do something unexpected to pay it forward to meet the need of another person.
- Give someone who is discouraged a word of encouragement.
- Call one person today that you know who is hurting and without any conditions, pray for them.
- Think of something that you really value and give it to someone.