I Love You More

Frequently, my toddler Tyler and I will have these little fights that consist of me saying "I love you"! and him saying back "no, I love YOU! And then I'll say "NO! I love YOU"! "And he will say "No, I love you!" And sometimes I'll say "I love you MORE!"  And it goes back and forth like that for a little while.  I can't help but picture a fight like that between us and the Lord.  It would go something like this: "Lord, I love you!" And He would say "No, I love YOU!" and we would say "NO, I love YOU!" And He would say "Well, I love YOU MORE"! And at that point we would have to throw up our hands and say:

"Ok, Lord, you win."

"God demonstrates His own love for us in this:  while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Not Our Responsibility

I admit it. I have judged people.  Looked at them with disgust.  Looked at the outward appearance, rather than what could be going on inside. Recently, I felt like the Lord really impressed upon my heart that as Christians, we need to stop judging the sinner, and start loving and reaching the lost.  It's not our job to judge and convict a person of whatever they've done wrong, or whatever wrong they're doing right now.  We've all fallen short of God's perfect will.  God didn't give us the job description of judge.  That's His job. When a person comes to Christ and gets born again, the Holy Spirit does the work on a person's heart that is necessary to change their behavior.  This takes such a load off of our shoulders!  I feel like so many of us are focused on the wrong thing.  We can hate the sin, but once we start loving people to Christ, rather than condemning people to Christ, I believe that's truly when real change will happen. We need to show people the character of our wonderful Savior and God.  He alone is the judge of this world. BUT He is also the  lover of our souls. He is love. It's His nature. It's His personality.  Our job is to love people and bring them to Jesus, not to change them.

Relax. The Holy Spirit will do the rest.


"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier." Luke 6:37 the message