Start with LOVE...

1 Corinthians 13:13- "Three things will last forever-faith, hope, and love-and the greatest of these is LOVE!"

Once we love, everything else comes together. Love is in everything. We are called to love everyone. I read this many times in the Bible but can say that I have not began to truly practice this until the last couple of months. I CHOSE who I wanted to love. Basically I was choosing who I thought deserved my love. But the Bible doesn't say it like that. Matthew 22:37 says to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind and puts this as the first and greatest commandment. The second, which is stated as equally important, is to love your neighbor as yourself. Neighbor is defined as a person next to or near you. Well there are times when we choose who is near us. But there is also a huge part of our lives that we are surrounded by people that maybe get on our nerves, that have hurt us, that we don't even know. Guess what? We are still supposed to love them. Love is a choice, it doesn't have to be a feeling. Love is not zero-based in which the more you give, the less you have left. God is love (1 John 4:8) and He is everlasting. That would make love eternity-based and the more you give, the more you have to go around. There is absolutely no limit and we are ridiculous to think otherwise.

Love is amazing and will change your life dramatically. We have a hard time loving people because we think that it will leave us vulnerable and that we are apt to rejection. So instead, we choose not to love. We choose to love those that we are close to and that are "safe". But in reality, they can end up hurting you worse. We are to love all. Things are so much better and days are so much brighter when we just LOVE. It changes your heart every second that you walk in love. It changes you into a better person in probably the simplest and easiest way ever imagined.

Just Love...