Are you loving and connecting?

“Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” - Matthew 22:37-39
As we come to accept the Lord as our personal Savior, we are now a part of the group that is called “Christians”. As Christian, we try to do the first part of the passage above which is “Love the Lord your God with all your Heart and with all your Soul and with all your Mind”. What about the second part “Love your Neighbor as yourself?” We all have problem doing that.
Who is your neighbor anyway? Your neighbor is whoever you come across with in your neighborhood, at your church, your job, market place, etc. We all need to do this second part too because Jesus said “it is like the first one.”
My beloved in the Lord, you who call yourself a Christian, do you want to start loving your neighbor today? Don’t look to far. Start from your church. All members of your church are your neighbors. How could you love others outside the church if you could not love the one who worship with you the same God in the same sanctuary every Sunday?
Do you think that there are some people in your church you cannot connect with? You see, when a child feel alone because he is away from home, he comes home because he knows this; “at home, I will be connected with my brothers and sisters. They will love me and make me feel comfortable. I will not feel alone again.” Could you imagine how miserable that child will feel if he cannot feel that connection he was looking among his ones?
Believe it or not, many are those miserable people in our churches today? They are alone in the world and they decided to come to church where they could meet loving people but unfortunately, their loneliness become worst. They come to church every Sunday but nobody connect with them. They sit, listen to the message and go home.
My friend! May be you are the one who sit next to that miserable soul that need connection so desperately but you did not even say “hello”. By doing so, are you loving your neighbor? It isn’t the church a place where people can run to for fellowship? As long as we are failing to provide a fellowship and connection among us in the church, we are sending people back to the world for wrong connection.
Are you coming to church but feel alone? You need to open up yourself for connection with other. Do not just come to church then go home but be willing to shake hand with somebody before you go home. The house of the Lord should be a place of fellowship and perfect connection to one another without exception.
Let fellowship with one another in our churches then we can prove to unbelievers that our God is a loving God. If you could not love your neighbor in your church but you try to show love outside the church, then you are just like someone who refuse to clean inside his house but keeps his yard clean.

Do you like the word of God? It will help you to discover him and know him in his fullness.
“For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.
The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.” Psalm 33:4-5

God knows the way

Psalm 143: 8 “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.”
In whom you put your trust. The king David put his trust in God and you have heard great things about him. Put your trust in God too.
God knows the way to your salvation, to your deliverance, to you healing, to your blessing etc; so why don’t you entrust him your life?

14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
1 Peter 1: 14-16

17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.

Habakkuk 3: 17-19

Psalm 124
A song of ascents. Of David.

1 If the LORD had not been on our side—
let Israel say—
2 if the LORD had not been on our side
when people attacked us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive
when their anger flared against us;
4 the flood would have engulfed us,
the torrent would have swept over us,
5 the raging waters
would have swept us away.
6 Praise be to the LORD,
who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

Just replace US by ME and WE by I in this Psalm while your are reading this.

“But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”” - Luke 1:30-33

Have you ever found a favor with God? If yes; what did you do with it? Mary accepted the favor and run with it. Are you embracing your favor?