“This is My commandment: that you love one another [just] as I have loved you.”
John 15:12 AMPC
Peaches loves…
Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
“This is My commandment: that you love one another [just] as I have loved you.”
John 15:12 AMPC
thedailylily.com 
“This is My commandment: that you love one another [just] as I have loved you.”
John 15:12 AMPC“ I must post the footnotes for this Scripture…..actually the footnotes from the NLT includes verse 13. “ We are to love each other as Jesus loved us, and he loved us enough to give his life for us. We may not have to die for someone, but there are other ways to practice sacrificial love: listening, helping, encouraging, giving. Think of someone in particular who needs this kind of love today. Give all the love you can, and then try to give a little more.” Beautiful picture of sweet Peaches 🍑 above.💕
Reading the scripture and looking at the lovely picture makes me think of Psalm 36:6 that Sara has shared often before, “You care for people and animals alike, O LORD.”
Our dogs seem to understand this well, and they respond back in appreciation with so many unspoken acts of love and care for those that care for them and often with complete strangers.
And here in John 15:12 we read that this reciprocal love and care is not an option but a command.
There is a lot of serious things to read and think on in John 15, especially…“[just] as I have loved you.”
Thanks Tammy and Debi for your thoughtful loving kind words that span the universe with healing droplets.❣️❣️❣️❣️ Love! Love! Love!
Tammy’s footnotes and this part, “ Give all the love you can, and then try to give a little more.” makes me think of my daily lemon squeeze. I start with a fresh one each morning to enliven my Yeti water for the day. I squeeze and slice and all is joy. About early afternoon the squeeze is not showing much juice. So I drop the whole lemon 🍋 in my water hoping the water has a draw that I didn’t. It does pretty good. Giving me thought now of the water Jesus gives that causes one to never thirst again, “John 4:10: “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “ Give Me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” Make your energy note, The living water that Jesus gives is a gift,…” A love gift is very special.
Debi gives us a snapshot of proof, we don’t chose the place, time, person or puppy, kitten, rabbit or butterfly to love. We may be like Jesus that loved the woman at the well and gave her fresh water to drink. Or, we may need to feed and water the traveler through town that has need for his animals to refresh from a trough to continue their journey.
Oh, I hope you take a few minutes and enjoy “Build an Ark” guess how?
Thanks for sharing this video…I really enjoyed it….you asked how to build an ark? I think they sang….”love one another.”
You got it Debi, love one another! I don’t think I’v heard that song before! And, like many things I find out when I take time to hear the Holy Spirit this became a joy. How many great things I miss by blocking the gift of love from the Holy Spirit from my heart by holding my mind in a rut of old beliefs that were good for many long years ago.
I’m very much aware those belief were great for those days but the new springs forth because God is the Creator. He uses His people that He formed in a Mother’s womb to grow and invent and do new things. Such things we could never dream of until He is ready to reveal.
First, we hold to our faith of the Son of God, Cross, blood and resurrection.
Yet, a typewriter, not even electric has become an iPhone in my hand. I’m going through these steps to build, you know, the hammers, held by those singers in our video are building bridges to relationships with one another.
When we have the bridges, the unity, the tools we will have things out of our reach because The Holy Lord reaches down to us and hears our prayers, sees our love which is the blood connection to Him. Look for vaccines, look for new meds, look for new ways, look for tools that are needful for today’s living.
The Vine holds the answer when the branches abide, be in relationship through love.
Pick up your tools my brothers and sisters and go to work. Make your deeds shine as a Jewel for Jesus as He (we build) build His Kingdom.
Love one another enough to wear a mask. An attitude you wear if you want but I won’t! Is that love since I wear for you and you wear for me? ❤️
Jesus said: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” – Luke 6:27-36
I love your comment just above that speaks of love your enemies. I will be honest that is hard! But God says.
Matthew 5: 44 “ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.“
Jesus showed unconditional love to ALL including his enemies when He journeyed on earth. Even as He hung on the cross, Jesus said “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” We are to do as Jesus did without judging – God is Judge.
God will help us to pray for all, but here we are asking Him how to pray for our enemies. In Hebrew 13:5 it says “God will never leave you or forsake you? We are not alone He is with us as we pray. God will answer our plea, Ask God, “How do I pray for ___________ , as they are my enemy?” God will give you the words. Change will happen for you and for your enemy. Ask God what steps to take next after praying for your enemy and ask that you do it in God’s timing. . He answers.
Love seeing Peaches who is calm, cared, and loved. I have a puppy named Lucky.
Lucky greets me ever morning wanting to be lifted up. He immediately crawls up on my shoulders with body almost all across my shoulders and I carefully hold on in fear he might fall. I will then move him down to my chest, and he deeply buries his head into my chest. Of course, I lots of hugs 🤗 followed with “I love you” said more than once.
In telling you the above story this reminds me of the Good Shepherd and the lost lamb.
He went looking for the lost lamb and when He found him He lifted him and put him on His shoulders.
We are also like the lamb. We go wherever one/the world leads us doing world things that will heart and wound us. He does not one lamb hurt. If that lamb had stayed close to the Shepherd the Shepherd would laid across the door of where he had kept the sheep ( I found in research it was a cave.). No enemy could hurt His sheep. For some reason the lamb decided to go his own way. The grass looked greener on the other side or way of life as we think. The Good Shepherd,, Jesus looks for us, never giving up hope of finding us as He loves each of us. Oh to lose one causes Him to weep just as I would weep to lose one of my doggies, but Jesus’s love is so so so deeper than mine.
In researching, I found that the reason that a shepherd puts a lamb on His shoulders was to bring Him home and also for the lamb’s wounds would heal.. Jesus does that for us. On the cross He was one wounded. He took on all of our sins Himself so that we did not have to pay the debt our waywardness from Jesus, which is sin. The Good Shepherd, Jesus will lift us up and carry us in this world and carry us home with wounds that no longer exist to our eternal home know as heaven. We have to look up to Him asking for forgiveness and He will forgive us and lift us up to Him.
Thanks be to the Good Shepherd who lifted me. His love never ends.
https://thosesoutherngospellyrics.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/he-lifted-me-lyrics/
What a lovely Name, the Name Jesus. Rena, you gave us reason to sing His praises! 🎼🎹
Rena wrote, “If that lamb had stayed close to the Shepherd the Shepherd would laid across the door of where he had kept the sheep”. That great illustration made me think that Jesus the Shepherd showed love by using his own body to be a barrier of protection between the sheep and the enemy.
I think that account fits like a perfect example of what Sara was saying: “Love one another enough to wear a mask.” I agree.
The scripture for the entire blog is ““This is My commandment: that you love one another [just] as I have loved you.”
John 15:12 AMPC”
If we show love like Jesus, the Shepherd, than we would be a barrier between the enemy virus and the vulnerable sheep if we would show care and compassion by wearing a mask. In many places, those that care have gone a step further and put up a barrier of plexiglass.
In response to Debi’s thoughts on enemies….”…For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge His people.” 31) It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 32) Remember the early days that you were in the light, when you endured a great conflict in the face of suffering.…”Hebrews 10:30-32
“If you want to see the future of Christianity as a great spiritual migration, don’t look at a church building. Go look in the mirror and look at your neighbor. God’s message of love is sent into the world in human envelopes. If you want to see a great spiritual migration begin, then let it start right in your body. Let your life be a foothold of liberation.”
This was from a devotional this am not sure who said it. But, I love being a love letter! Don’t you?
Sara, as I read through the blog I think you really wove threads of the new to illustrate the new…reminded me of Revelation 21:5: “Behold, I am making all things new.”
From the Build the ark video….a new way of doing things…
To your thread words “He uses His people that He formed in a Mother’s womb to grow and invent and do new things. Such things we could never dream of until He is ready to reveal.” …
To another thread word: “Look for vaccines, look for new meds, look for new ways, look for tools that are needful for today’s living.”…
And then the devotion to confirm it: “God’s message of love is sent into the world in human envelopes. If you want to see a great spiritual migration begin, then let it start right in your body. Let your life be a foothold of liberation.”
Exciting Debi just as you are finding new ways to teach and instruct your high school students in the vast opportunities that awaits each mind as they delve into new ways of seeing, hearing and applying their skills in a World of ideas and ways that’s been turned upside down by a virus so have you threaded the needle of hope where sin abounds.