Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. (Colossians 3:16 NLT) Alexis Carrel reminds us, "All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people." The message of Christ, his goodness and his grace, needs to fill all of our lives, not just the Sunday-parts! Wisdom or counsel is only as trustworthy as the source of such wisdom. When we are teaching one another with the wisdom Christ gives us in our daily study of his Word and the time we spend alone with him, we are truly connecting each other to the wisdom that will guide and protect each other. Teach and counsel - two very specific actions that have a bit of a different meaning. When we teach someone, we are showing them or instructing them in how something is to be done. When we counsel one another, we are actually giving w...
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. (I Corinthians 13:4-5 NLT) Lewis B. Smedes reminds us, "To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you." We may not realize just how 'bound' we have become by holding onto those things we find 'hard to forgive' in others. It isn't that we don't want to forgive - it is that our memory keeps it front and center in our lives, making it hard to really let go. Forgiveness doesn't mean we won't remember a slight against us. Some might think it means the pain we associate with the slight will begin to be less and less until one day it is there no longer. We won't really let go of the unforgiveness - it just doesn't bring us that same level of pain when we remember it. This isn't what God had in mind for us, though. He wants us to be both free of th...