LOVE

I have been meaning to put up this post for the longest time (since Valentine's Day - okay, not that long). I know I have been absent for more than a year...I think I'm coming back now...planning on updating my blog more often.

This is written by our pastor, Pastor B.J. Tatum of Canaan Missionary Baptist Church, and I just love it. I read it in our bulletin on Valentine's Day. I hope it can be a blessing to you.

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"We live in a day of superficial friendships and selfish understanding of love, and we are attracted on a superficial level because of external characteristics. Everybody needs a friend. The world is filled with lonely people. We are surrounded by people whom we know, but not many of the could we consider genuinely close friends.

Proverbs 17:17, "A friend loves at all times." Love is an indispensable key to Spiritual and mental health. A person who is mentally healthy is able to express love for the benefit of other people, to sacrifice for them, and to meet needs in others' lives. LOVE SUPREME was the sacrificial love of Christ when He "laid down His life for His friends" (John 15:13).

The secret of joy in Christ and victory through prayer is not in freedom from struggles and conflicts, but in experiencing God in the midst of life's hurts and disappointments.

Many Christians become discouraged when they are rejected or treated unfairly. This gives rise to a spirit of retaliation which destroys their peace and ruins their testimony.

We are alienated from God by nature and by choice, but Jesus, our suffering Savior, took upon Him our sins and paid the supreme penalty due us. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), but the sinless Christ was made sin for us so that we "might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21). Sinful man is too poor spiritually to pay his debt to God. Jesus died both for what we are by nature and what we do because of our nature. "Christ died for our sins" (I Corinthias 15:3).

Divine Love causes us to not merely partake of God's love; we must participate in it by allowing His love to spill over into our friendships with others."
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How many of your friends that you really consider as your close friends? Who know everything about you, in and out? If you have more than one, consider yourself blessed. It's so true how we have a lot of friends or we know a lot of people, but only a very small percentage of them are who we consider as our so-called true friends.

One way to recognize a true friend is to see how they are during your hard times. The person who sticks around no matter what the situation is, who is not afraid to chastise you and tell you the truth, those are the keepers.

I am not an extrovert person to begin with, but I am truly grateful for the people that God has put in my life. Throughout the years, I found myself becoming more and more open to more people. I know I am blessed to have a few people that I consider as my close friends. But there is One, the 'best-est' friend that someone could ever ask for, His name is Jesus. He is a friend that everybody could count on. He loves you SO MUCH and I do too.