Put Love into Practice

Last week, we talked about what it could mean to practice the wrong things; how practicing something the wrong way over and over again, does not lead to perfection. I hope that you took my call to action and applied it, and this week, I’d like to talk a little about what we should  be practicing.
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It is an obvious one folks, and I’m going to keep it short and sweet today.What should we be putting into practice?  

Do you know how many times the word love is in the Bible? That’s ok. I didn’t either. It varies, depending upon the translation you might be reading. For me, I have an NIV, so I used this site to find out. From there, you can change the translation you’re reading to find out yours. 

The word love appears in the standard NIV Bible 574 times in 526 different verses. That’s a lot.  The names Lord, God, and Jesus appear more often. Also, there are less significant, two and three letter words which appear more often. But I have searched many words, and not even the word pray appears more often than love. It’s not even close. 

Of course, it is important to pray, but what is the one thing that plays on repeat over and over again in the teachings of Jesus, and the teachings of the New Testament? Have we ever read/heard/seen anyone love the way that Jesus loves? I can barely stomach being in the same room with someone who has the stomach bug, but Jesus didn’t run from the sick. He didn’t turn from the hurting. He didn’t chastise the broken.

Jesus walked among the broken. He embraced the hurting, and he cared for the sick. He corrected, and he rebuked, but more often than not, He taught by example and parables, frequently revolving around loving people.

We read of him washing the feet of others, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry. We read of him laying down his life, in great suffering, for the sake of not just his friends, but his enemies as well. Page after page after page, we see examples of this love, and yet we so often walk around with chips on our shoulders, as though the world owes us something. We are quick to anger, quick to judge, and quick to throw tantrums when things don’t go as planned. Why? Because those things come more easily to our sinning nature, because we have practiced the wrong things! 

What is it that we have “learned or heard or seen” from God? The teachings throughout the Bible, and more specifically the teachings of Jesus, are repetitive. So should our practices be. It takes work, and it takes repetition to make changes. It’s a good thing we have a manual for that. 

But don’t take my word for it! A great place to start is the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ longest sermon, found throughout Mathew chapters 5,6, and 7. Just like Paul stated in Galatians 5:14, even this can be largely summed up with love​.