Loving Others

It was our first council of the year and Marilyn did a devotion about how we use love as a commodity. She read from the book Blue Like Jazz; This is a quote that I found intriguing.

"The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money... This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all those years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did" (Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller, p.218).

This was something I know that I really needed to hear. I had been struggling with loving a person that I really didn't like, and I could tell it was beginning to show. Another quote from Blue Like Jazz is,

"If a person senses that you do not like them... then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them. If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say" (Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller, p.220).

As Christians we need to strive to like people to put our judgments down, we judge other Christians, we judge the world. We say that we love unconditionally but this isn't true. We leave no room for God to work through us with His amazing love and grace that none of us deserve. In my post a couple days ago I talked about how I want to learn to let other people love me, and with that I must learn to love other people beyond likes and dislikes. I tend to like most people, there are very few people I do not but I still find myself at fault of placing judgment where it should not be. Love is not a commodity, it is undeserved and based on grace and acceptance. If God gives us unconditional love then it seems we must strive to give this to others.

- T. 









Apparently there is movie coming out called Blue Like Jazz, that came from the book.