We are called to love! encourage! and challenge each other!

Ya know how whenever I have a passionate post....God always follows up with some extra lessons for me. Well He did it again! I get daily devotionals from the Purpose Driven Life to my email and I thought the one I read today fit very appropriately into what was on my heart! It was all about Love.. then I checked out my favorite blogs and 3 of them all had that same theme! I love how God does that! So it got me thinking of some ideas I had to add onto my passionate 2 previous posts:

As can be shown from my last 2 passionate posts, I LOVE the Truth and I LOVE people. I want to be more and more like Jesus. He always always always stuck up for the Truth yet at the same time always offering love to all.

I just genuinely love people. I'm a people person. I love meeting new people, learning about them and talking. I am very compassionate... actually I used to be way overly compassionate (a bleeding heart) never really giving credit to people as to how strong they could be. And never giving credit to God that He can help people overcome. I'd feel so BAD for people -- but I realized that was unncessary. Have compassion - but then use it to help them. Help them realize things can and will get better! Help them put on their big girl (or boy) panties and move on! I was soo compassionate/sensitive that I had to call my mom at least twice a year in school to pick me up early because I was too upset because I saw somebody eating lunch by themselves..or I saw somebody get picked on or whatever.. but literally I went home from school crying quite often up until 8th grade. I remember when I didn't do it in 8th grade, the WHOLE family was excited - I was getting stronger!

But ...like I was trying to get across in my last posts, enough though I love people and have so much fun with them and have so much compassion for them, I want to make sure that I always stand up for my beliefs even if means that I have to give somebody a Truth they don't want to hear.... I don't want to ever give an answer that doesn't boldly speak from my heart. My grandma would never tell me something that was not a Truth just to make me feel good about myself... and I LOVED that about her. I think it was a Jesus quality. I don't think it's possible to truly love somebody and lie to them.

Sometimes loving somebody means setting a higher standard for them, a higher standard then they have for themselves... sometimes loving somebody means you want what's best for them in the LONG TERM (eternity) not just their immediate happiness. And sometimes loving somebody means that you express your love for THEM but let them know you don't approve of their actions/lifestyle/whatever it may be.

I don't believe we ever have the right to "call anybody out" or put somebody down unprovoked. Unasked-for "advice" is called criticism... and one of the first people skills I was ever taught was to not criticize, condemn or complain.

Above all else we must love God... and we do that by putting Him first... and His Truth first... and Then we are to love others above ourselves. We will never win people to our Kingdom while wearing robes, we must leave the judging to God .... but we will also never help people live to the fullest and best relationship they can have with the Lord -- without challenging them to be better!!

SO HOW do we talk to people about sin while still showing them love... and do it without criticizing, and acting like we are better than them???? see this post: http://therooksfamily.blogspot.com/2007/10/keeping-each-other-accountable-for-sins.html those are some of my thoughts on that

We are called to ENCOURAGE one another -- never to Condemn!!

Jesus loved on everybody --- but He challenged people to be better. He saw them for what they COULD be yet loved them where they were... and loved them enough to help them get there and not stay unchanged!

I want to be like that! :) I want everybody to feel my love... but I also want God to shine His light through me so I will offend the darkness in others!!