Contagious: communicable by contact, catching, exciting similar emotions or conduct (i.e. your enthusiasm is contagious)
Will those I come in contact with today catch love from me? Will my presence be communicable with love? Will my loving character entice and excite others to experience the emotions and conduct of love? Christ in us is contagious and enticing!
“Mimic God; you are his offspring. This is how: let the love of Christ be in your life; remember how he abandoned himself to us. His love is contagious, not reluctant but extravagant. Sacrificial love pleases God like the sweet aroma of worship.” Eph. 5:1-2, Mirror
“It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.
For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence; Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.” Gal. 5:13-14, Mirror
The Way of Love
13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
Love is large and passionate about life. It is also a fortress where everyone receiving love feels protected, not exposed-safe. Love covers a multitude of sins. Authentic God love is persistent, believing the best, never losing hope and remaining constant in the face of contradictions. Love’s delight is in everything that truth celebrates.
Professor Henry Drummond speaking to missionary students on their way to minister in China and India in 1880:
“You can take nothing greater to the world than the impress and reflection of the Love of God upon your own character. That is the universal language. It will take you years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day you land, that language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence. It is the man who is the missionary; it is not merely his words. His character is his message.”
Prophetic Word for today: emanate love and let the love of the brethren continue. The world desperately needs to experience God’s love in and through us today!
In the grip of Papa’s love, Ron Ross
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