If you take the time to learn someone’s story, you’ll find something you can honor and you can only love what you are willing to honor.
Leif Hetland
Daily Christian Quote Website
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Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people, they give up their secrets also – if you love them enough.
Grace is the first ingredient necessary for growing up in the image of God. Grace is unbroken, uninterrupted, unearned, accepting relationship. It is the kind of relationship humanity had with God in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were loved and provided for. They knew God’s truth, and they had perfect freedom to do God’s will. In short, they were secure; they had no shame and anxiety. They could be who they truly were.
One of the things I’ve learned following Jesus is how much He enjoyed being with people. Except for time with His Father, there seemed to be nothing He loved more. He didn’t just love the idea of being with people either, He actually loved being with them. A lot of people in the world stop being available at some point. It’s subtle, because it happens a little at a time and it’s not malicious or anything—it happens though. But Jesus wasn’t that way. He seemed to have more time for people as time went on, not less. That’s one of the things which makes love so powerful; it leaves us a way to find it.
When your heart is ablaze with the love of God, when you love other people – especially the ripsnorting sinners – so much that you dare to tell them about Jesus with no apologies, then never fear, there will be results.
When most people read the parable Jesus told in Luke 15, they refer to it as the story of the “Prodigal Son.” Religion traditionally has made this story about the failure and sins of the son, just as religion often focuses more on the deeds of the sinner rather than on what God has done to restore the relationship between Himself and His children. But this parable is more about a father’s love and cry for intimacy than it is a son’s rebellion. Although the son did spend his inheritance extravagantly, how much more recklessly did his father give honor, compassion, forgiveness, and grace to his son when he least deserved it?
Jack Frost
Daily Christian Quote Website
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