“This I command you, that you love one another.” John 15:17

We’ve heard it said time and again. Love is not a feeling. It is a commitment directed towards imperfect people to seek their highest good which often requires sacrifice.

C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity says, “Do not waste your time bothering whether you love your neighbor – act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

Have you ever heard the story, “The Frog and the Princess?”  Sometimes we are kind of like the frog.  Frogs feel slow, low, ugly, puffy, drooped and pooped.   The frog-feeling comes when you want to shine, but you feel down.  When you want to share, but you are selfish, when you want to be thankful, but you feel resentment, when you want to be great, but you are small, when you want to care, but really you are indifferent.   At one time or another each of us has found himself on a lily pad floating down the river of life, frightened, disgusted, we are just too froggish.  Once upon a time, there was a frog, only really he was not a frog.  He was a prince who looked like a frog.  A wicked witch cast a spell on him.  Only the kiss of a beautiful maiden could save him.  But since when did cute girls kiss frogs? There he sat, the unkissed prince in frog form.  One day a beautiful maiden gathered him up and gave him a great big smack.  “Crash, boom, zap.“  There he was, a handsome prince.  You know the rest, “They lived happily ever after.“  So what is the lesson here? What is the task of the church?  Kissing frogs, of course.  Did you ever kiss a frog? Is not that what Jesus was saying?  “Love one another.” The kind of love that we share with people even though if they are frogs can transform them into a prince.  He has done with you and me.  Think of how much the Lord has loved me, and how much more should I love others.  Only He can give us the power to do this.  (MS)

We are called to take His light
To a world where wrong is right;
What could be too great a cost
For sharing life with one who’s lost?
Through His love our hearts can feel
All the grief they bear;
They must hear the Words of Life
Only we can share. -Ray Boltz