Love In Action (Part 2)

Love In Action (Part 2)

Romans 12:12-13 “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”

Today we continue on in the section of Romans titled Love in Action.  If you didn’t listen yesterday, we are taking this week to go through Romans 12:9-21 and look at it in a little more detail.  My hope is by the end of this week we will all know how to love a little better. This verse starts out by telling us to be joyful in hope.  This isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to do.  What if we have been hoping for something for a long time?  What if we are starting to get tired of waiting for that thing to happen? I think even in these circumstances, God is asking us to be joyful in hope.  He doesn’t specify, be joyful only when it is easy to hope.  He doesn’t specify, be joyful only when you are just beginning to hope.  He just says be joyful in hope.  Is that what you have been missing?  Have you been hoping for something and yet not really joyful while you hope?  What if you made that change?  What would be different if you were joyful in hope?  Could you give it a try?

Next it says be patient in affliction.  Man, we are starting right out of the gate this morning with some hard words.  An affliction is something that causes you pain and suffering.  I was just thinking about this and how the section we are reading about is love in action.  In this context I can see how it would be important to be patient while in affliction. Have you ever been around a loved one who is in pain and is not patient?  It can definitely be hard to feel any love from that person.  When we are in pain we don’t always feel like being patient.  Actually, I don’t necessarily think it is always a choice.  Patience is something that seems to come naturally to some while others have to work hard to be patient.  If patience is something that you need to work hard for it is not going to be easy to have patience when you are suffering and all your effort is focused on your pain.  
I think it is important to remember that the Bible is teaching us how to live, how to love, how to pray, how to do all things like Jesus did.  It is giving us the instructions and it is up to us to apply them in our lives.  Learning the things in the Bible is like learning anything else, it takes time.  I don’t want you to hear these episodes on learning to love and then feel bad because you don’t love exactly the way it talks about in the Bible.  We are all learning, some of us may be hearing this for the first time.  Some of us may have read this in the Bible one hundred times and yet never stopped to examine it and implement it in their lives.  This podcast is about our journey.  It is about trying to be a little better today than we were yesterday.  You might hear that God wants us to be patient in affliction and then think about how angry you get when you are suffering, or what a terrible patient you are when you are sick.  That’s ok, this is a process.  The first step is knowing what God is calling us to and noticing how our actions differ from that.  Once we are aware of something, then we can work to change it.  

The verse goes on to say be faithful in prayer.  This doesn’t seem like a hard one, but it can be.  How many times have we let other things get in the way of our prayer time?  If we think of this in terms of love in action, we can see how praying for others can help them feel loved.  I can definitely see how being faithful in prayer can show love.  We want the best for our loved ones.  We want them to succeed and to be healthy and happy.  The best way to help them with this is not nagging them to do what we think they should do, believe me, I have tried that route.  The best way to do this is for us to be faithful in prayer and to turn our worries and concerns over to God.  God loves our loved ones more than we ever could.  He wants the best for them.  If we can be faithful in prayer and then let God do the rest, our loved ones will feel more loved because we won’t constantly be nagging them.  No-one likes to be nagged.

Next, the verse says to share with the Lord’s people who are in need.  This is a great one.  It’s not hard to see how sharing with those in need could be love in action.  However, we might not always encounter love when we share with those in need.  There are a lot of factors that might come up.  For instance, we all struggle with pride at times and so someone in need might not take what you are trying to give because their pride is getting in the way.  Also, people in need might be angry at their circumstances and so they may not be as gracious as you would want them to be.  Don’t let a one bad encounter, or even a few bad encounters stop you from giving to those in need.  We are all people, we all have days when we aren’t our best versions of ourselves.  Just because someone didn’t receive your gift, donation, help with gratitude or grace this time, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give next time.  Keep sharing with those in need, keep loving people with your actions.

The last thing in this verse says practice hospitality.  This can be a great way to show love to others.  People love when they are treated with hospitality.  Hospitality can incorporate a variety of actions.  It can mean that you invite people into your home, have people over for dinner, or host a party for your family or neighbors.  When Tony and I first got married, we loved having people over to the house.  I remember we were out shopping one day and the salesman was very nice and we were both thinking, we should have him over for dinner.  We laugh now because we used to want to invite everyone over for dinner.  However, hospitality doesn’t have to mean having people over to your house if you don’t want to.  Another way to show people hospitality is to prepare meals for them if they have a baby, if they are sick, if they had surgery, or if they had a death in their family.  

This is something that is pretty big on military bases.  I never really saw it before living on base, but if you have a baby in the military, often times your the squadron of the military member will organize meals to be dropped off so you don’t have to worry about cooking for the first week or two.  Let me tell you, this definitely feels like love in action when you have a little baby and aren’t getting much sleep and then someone shows up at your doorstep with dinner all prepared.  You definitely feel loved and you definitely love that person.  Another way to show hospitality is to welcome a new neighbor.  Moving is hard and stressful and it feels so good when one of your new neighbors takes the time to stop by and say hello and welcome you into the neighborhood.  Think back to some times when people showed you hospitality.  How did it make you feel?  Did you feel loved?

Today we talked about several ways to put love into action.  I will leave you with the words from scripture to ponder throughout the day today. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”  How can you put love into action today?

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those who listen to this episode today.  Lord, help us to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer.  Those are not all easy things to do and we definitely rely on you to help us.  Lord, help us to share with your people who are in need, even when it’s not easy.  Help us to not get discouraged if we run into problems when we try to share what we have with others.  Help us to not get discouraged if all doesn’t go like we thought it would.  Lord, help us to practice hospitality.  Jesus was so good at this, please help us love like Jesus did.  We are so grateful for all you do for us, you are amazing Lord.  We love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to brining you another witness tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

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