LOL - Living Our Legacy - Part 3

Part 3 of LOL - Living Our Legacy

When our Christian home is built on a firm foundation, we have a good start on leaving the kind of legacy we want to leave.  But, in the last post I mentioned gifts....housewarming gifts.  In the next few days we will look at each of this "gifts".

What we bring into our home should be how we want to live our legacy. It should contain how we want to be remembered and what we want to pass on to our children and our grandchildren. It should only be filled with what we want our example and influence to be on those around us.

Let's open the first gift. It's LOVE. Yes, let's fill our house with love. The Bible has a lot to say about love.

 In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus tells us just how important love is in our relationship with Him and also with others.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'.

James 2:8 tells us "If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ’Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right."

The Apostle John in 1 John 3:11 wrote: "This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another."

Paul, in Romans 13:8 declared: "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law."

Peter, in 1 Peter 1:22 told us: "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart."

And, again Jesus said about love:

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you." John 15:9-12

Loving our family members. Loving each other. Even loving our enemies. That is something that should fill our home. Love is something we should want as our legacy.

BUT HOW?

How can we fill our home with this kind of love that God wants us to have? By our words and by our actions. Saying “I love you” is difficult for some people to say, but it's very important to say. But maybe even more important than saying "I love you" is showing that you love someone. Love is action. We can say it every day, but if we don't show it – those words are useless.

Our love for God and for Jesus should be first and our love for others and caring for the needs of others should come before our own needs, BUT, look again at the first passage I have listed from Matthew 22.  Jesus says there to "love your neighbor as yourself".  If we don't love ourselves is it even possible to love others?  Maybe our inability to show love to others is the struggle we have to sometimes love ourselves.  It seems that we can love ourselves too much and neglect others, but it also seems that we can NOT love ourselves and be incapable of loving others.  There's got to be a balance.  A balance of love.
Live a legacy of love.