“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3:18
I recently observed three different families in our church who were loving others in practical, amazing and helpful ways. I believe there are three lessons we can learn from their examples.
First way to love people better is to make yourself available. You actually need to tell someone —maybe a Small Group Leader, a pastor, or the person you see with a need. Tell them you are willing and available to help! That’s why I love this verse so much. Don’t just have some nice thoughts about how you want to help — actually DO something. I know a family in our church who had a broken car. A different family in our church had told a leader they wanted to help with practical things, like broken cars. Thankfully, as you guessed it, the broken car got fixed!
Second way to love people better is to spend your money and time. Truly loving people is costly, both financially and time-wise. In the example above, a second family had told the same leader, that they wanted to spend their money helping others. So, because they had the desire and means (and again, had actually communicated their desire to help), they were able to spend their money in a directed, practical way to help someone else out.
Third way to love people better is to pray that God would meet the needs in our church. Recently,
I heard about a family who had a need. I prayed that morning that God would meet their need. I kid you not, only a couple of hours later, a third family texted me and said they wanted to bless someone in the church randomly. Boom, answered prayer!
Looking for opportunities to love people better,
Posted in A Word from the Pastor