Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
One of our dogs had this strange habit. Each time we would walk through the door, he would get so excited to see us that he grabbed a shoe from the mudroom and excitedly carried it around the house. It was cute at first…until we would get ready to leave and couldn’t find our shoes. They might be left in the basement or in an upstairs bedroom, or even out in the yard – but never put back in the mudroom. We tried everything to stop him from his shoe theft but were wildly unsuccessful. After a while he even looked a little guilty when he picked one up…but he still picked it up anyway. He honestly looked like he knew it was wrong, but he still snuck those shoes! His actions quickly betrayed him.
We’re all a little like that sometimes, aren’t we? We say we love others – we look like we know the right thing to do…but we do something else anyway. Or maybe we sort of act lovingly…we get most of the way there. But self-centeredness sneaks in there and our actions betray us, too.
This week ask God to help your actions match your words…and maybe that our words would match our hearts. That may be a good place to start – a heart that is so full of the love of Christ that it can’t help but pour out love in the form of kindness on others.
