Browse Weekly Wisdoms

Weekly Wisdoms for the week of June 24, 2024

The way you know you've been given life, hope, and a future is when you begin giving those away to everyone else.

When you get something that you really love, you can't help but tell other people about it. For example, if you get a really cool new car, everyone around you will hear about it. When you meet an amazing person, you can't help but tell others about him or her. You're not making a deliberate effort to talk about that person; rather, it just seems totally natural to want to talk about him or her.

In the same way, if you've experienced God's miraculous work in your life (e.g., salvation), you don't have to try really hard to force yourself to tell others about God; it just comes naturally—it's what you want to do. What He did for you was so great that you want to brag about Him. But in order to come to the point in life where you can't help but talk about God, you first must experience the greatness of God. As the psalmist says, you need to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

Ingest and digest God's glory. It's interesting that the psalmist used tasting rather than seeing, hearing, smelling, or feeling. Notice that out of the five senses, only when we taste something do we actually get it inside of us. We're not supposed to just hear about God's glory or see his glory at a distance, we need to taste God for ourselves.

Let God get in you and become a part of your identity. Then, when people see you, they'll recognize that you look a lot like Jesus because you'll be giving them the same thing He gave you—life, hope, and a future.

Love unexpressed is not love at all.

In John 13:34-35, Jesus instructed us—His followers—to love others: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." As Christians, learning to walk in love should be a very high priority.

Unfortunately, we often love others only superficially—that is, we talk love, but don't live love. James 2:15-16 addresses this problem: "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?"

If you say that you love someone, but don't express it by what you do, then that "love" is worthless. Indeed, it isn't even real love.

Likewise, 1 John 3:17-18 asks, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." Here again, we are instructed to love with actions—not just with our mouth.

Follow the instructions of Jesus: love one another. However, remember that real love must be accompanied by actions, because love unexpressed is not love at all.