If you knew you were REALLY loved, what would it change? If you were knew that you were really loved by God, your family, or perhaps even your friends, what would be different about your life? A lot of people get confused about what love really is. Love is not admiration, or compliments, or even affection. Its easy to get confused because these are what get portrayed as love in our culture. Im movies and books and tv shows, they all portray love as being this. But what is really at the center of all of this? Selfishness. Think about it, everybody strives to be at the center of attention. We want to have the latest fashion, or the prettiest face. Just so that we can be "loved" by the people around us. Do you show love to people just so that they will love you back? Just so that they will tell you that your hair looks pretty? Is that real love? No its not. Selfishness is at the root of it all. We need to love people just to love them, expecting nothing in return. That is how Jesus showed us love. People hated him, but he didn't care what people thought of Him. He wanted to show them love regardless.
Faith, hope and trust in Jesus Christ are what bring love out in us. These are the three fundamentals. Faith, Hope, and Trust. We need to have these things down before we can even begin to think about loving people. I mean REALLY loving people. With the Christ like love that Jesus showed us. Loving people without being selfish. Once we are believers for a long time we start to move past those fundamentals and get more experience. Often times, however, once we think we know everything there is to know we forget about these fundamentals. We lose sight of them. And slowly they start dwindling away. Until finally we don't even know where our faith, hope, and trust went. We know that they were there, but we stopped practicing them because we thought that we had them down good enough. We always need to go back to the fundamentals. Even if we think we know them good enough. If we don't have these fundamentals then it will be impossible to love someone without selfish intent and desire.
The other day my basketball coach was talking to us after we had just loss a really tough game. He said, "Girls, do you know what the three fundamentals of basketball are?" We answered his question and he continued. "You guys are really skilled players, but you have lost all sight of the three fundamentals. You think you knew them good enough so you stopped practicing them. Once that happened, however, you lost control of everything that happened on the court. The ball would get stolen from you or they would get the rebound and then you would not run your plays correctly, all because you lost sight of all three fundamentals. You lost this game because you did not remember your fundamentals. These three fundamentals are key to everything we do in basketball. You must never stop practicing them, no matter how good you think you are." When I first heard him say this, I didn't really know what he was talking about. But as I was listening to this sermon on love, it suddenly all made perfect sense. I knew exactly what he was talking about and he was right. We had all stopped doing the fundamentals because we thought we knew them and were good enough. This is the same thing with Faith, Hope, and Trust. We must never lose sight in these three fundamentals because we think we know them good enough or we are experienced enough. Just like not remembering the fundamentals will lose us games, not remembering Faith, Hope, and trust will lose us souls and the ability to REALLY love people.
So, let me ask you again. If you knew that you were REALLY loved by God, your family and your friends, what would that change about your life and the way you choose to love people? Would you still choose to love them just so they will treat you nicely and say nice things about you? Or would you love them with the Christ like love that Jesus showed us? Will you be selfish? Or will you remember the three fundamentals? I hope that you will choose to always remember your faith, hope and trust in Jesus Christ at all times. Love people, expecting nothing in return. Do not love them for selfish reasons. Ask Him to teach you about His love. Ask Him to show you and guide you to not have a selfish love for people. He will answer.
Faith, hope and trust in Jesus Christ are what bring love out in us. These are the three fundamentals. Faith, Hope, and Trust. We need to have these things down before we can even begin to think about loving people. I mean REALLY loving people. With the Christ like love that Jesus showed us. Loving people without being selfish. Once we are believers for a long time we start to move past those fundamentals and get more experience. Often times, however, once we think we know everything there is to know we forget about these fundamentals. We lose sight of them. And slowly they start dwindling away. Until finally we don't even know where our faith, hope, and trust went. We know that they were there, but we stopped practicing them because we thought that we had them down good enough. We always need to go back to the fundamentals. Even if we think we know them good enough. If we don't have these fundamentals then it will be impossible to love someone without selfish intent and desire.
The other day my basketball coach was talking to us after we had just loss a really tough game. He said, "Girls, do you know what the three fundamentals of basketball are?" We answered his question and he continued. "You guys are really skilled players, but you have lost all sight of the three fundamentals. You think you knew them good enough so you stopped practicing them. Once that happened, however, you lost control of everything that happened on the court. The ball would get stolen from you or they would get the rebound and then you would not run your plays correctly, all because you lost sight of all three fundamentals. You lost this game because you did not remember your fundamentals. These three fundamentals are key to everything we do in basketball. You must never stop practicing them, no matter how good you think you are." When I first heard him say this, I didn't really know what he was talking about. But as I was listening to this sermon on love, it suddenly all made perfect sense. I knew exactly what he was talking about and he was right. We had all stopped doing the fundamentals because we thought we knew them and were good enough. This is the same thing with Faith, Hope, and Trust. We must never lose sight in these three fundamentals because we think we know them good enough or we are experienced enough. Just like not remembering the fundamentals will lose us games, not remembering Faith, Hope, and trust will lose us souls and the ability to REALLY love people.
So, let me ask you again. If you knew that you were REALLY loved by God, your family and your friends, what would that change about your life and the way you choose to love people? Would you still choose to love them just so they will treat you nicely and say nice things about you? Or would you love them with the Christ like love that Jesus showed us? Will you be selfish? Or will you remember the three fundamentals? I hope that you will choose to always remember your faith, hope and trust in Jesus Christ at all times. Love people, expecting nothing in return. Do not love them for selfish reasons. Ask Him to teach you about His love. Ask Him to show you and guide you to not have a selfish love for people. He will answer.
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