Two matters of great importance lay heavy on my heart today, Father. I am so grateful that both of them were no surprise to You. I lay them in Your surpassingly capable hands. Amen.
1 Corinthians 13:4c (<<click here to read the passage)
Love…is not jealous or envious… AMP
Love is complicated, isn’t it? A significant factor in our inability to love is the fact that we have not been loved enough ourselves.
Speaking with a friend the other day, it came up that her daughter was regularly being berated by another girl in her grade level. Mom told her that the antagonist was being nasty because she was broken. The other girl wasn’t expressing any love whatsoever because she probably had minimal reserves. She was perhaps loved to a certain degree, but not nearly deeply or often enough. And her nastiness is nothing like love because it is driven by jealousy and envy…and those are not love.
This past spring, we had trouble starting our mower. Long story short, we had to have the carburetor replaced. The mechanic who serviced it said that our gas contained ethanol. Ethanol is derived from corn. It is blended with gasoline to improve air quality, engine performance, and environmental impact. The problem was that we had repeatedly let it sit in the mower over several winters, and the ethanol began to dissolve the rubber gaskets in the carburetor. He recommended filling it with gasoline with no ethanol (much more expensive, by the way!), mowing with that toward the end of the season, and then letting that sit in the tank through the winter months.
Our lives are like that. It may not be easy to think this way, but love is what keeps us moving…it is our motivator. There are times when the love we receive is in short supply. Other times, other things are added to the love we receive. They may be a means of stretching the love to make it go further. But if that’s all we have to live on, it begins to take a toll on us. Over a period of time, it breaks us down until, eventually, we are broken.
Our hearts of stone just can’t take it… And just like our carburetor had to be replaced, so do our hearts.
The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel wrote through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart [a heart of flesh.] Ezekiel 36:26 NLT
Lord Jesus, enable our love not to be jealous or envious but give us new hearts, we pray, that are tender and responsive to You. Amen.
Dec 19th, 2023, Tues, 12:41 pm
