love is what life is all about…

human beings have an amazing capacity to both remember and forget.  we remember every single little hurt we ever had in life and we always forget the lessons.  we have to learn the lessons over and over and over again.  we need to pray like david prayed in psalm 39.4 (nlt), LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.  and in psalm 90.12 (nlt), teach us to make the most of our time. 

now there are some truths that we need to remember to help us to focus our lives.  if you do you’ll have a happier family.  you’ll have a more productive business.  there will be far fewer divorces and separations in our culture, if we will just listen to what GOD has said about relationships.

one of these truths is that the best use of our life is love.

1 corinthians 14.1 (nlt) says, let love be your highest goal.  make it your number one priority. make it number one!

GOD says love is what life is all about.  1 corinthians 13.3 in the message paraphrase, no matter what i say, what i believe, and what i do, i'm bankrupt without love. if you don’t have love, GOD says you’re bankrupt.

too often we act like loving relationships are something we have to squeeze into our schedule as if they are an important part but just another important part along with many other things.  wrong!  GOD says loving relationships are your life.  it’s all about love. 

one day a guy comes to JESUS and says, “i need cliff notes on the bible.  summarize the bible for me.”  JESUS says, love GOD with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.  in a word, JESUS is saying the point of life is “relationships”. if you miss that you miss the point of life.  that’s the bottom line.  what matters most is loving relationships. 

now if that’s true, why do we always allow our relationships to get the short end of the stick?  when we get overloaded we start skimming relationally.  we fulfill all kinds of other commitments but we don’t give our relationships the time, the energy and the attention they deserve because we’re too busy with what we think are more important pressing matters. 

why do we do that?  because we focus on the urgent rather than on the important and i hope you know the difference by now.  not everything that’s urgent in your life is important in your life.  so as a result we spend all of our time focusing on making a living, getting the job done, finishing the work, paying the bills, making progress, accomplishing the goal as if that’s the point of life.  it is not.  the point of life GOD says is love.  the point of life, GOD says, is relationship. 

just a thought from the front porch…