"I don't feel like I love my partner anymore!"

"I just don't feel the love in my heart like I used to."

First, I don't believe love is a feeling such as sadness or even, happiness, are feelings. I always tell people 'love is a verb'. One interpretation on the text on the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 is that the FRUIT of the Spirit is LOVE and that the list that follows is simply words which describe 'love' - i.e. joy, peace, patience, etc. For example, when you live at peace with others you are demonstrating love.

Second, my reading of Jesus tells me that love for Jesus (God) is demonstrated by action or behavior. John 14:23-24 - "if anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching...He who does not love me will not obey my teaching." Again, love is not a feeling but a behavior! Christian love is not sentimentality - it is behavior which demonstrates our concern, care and 'passion' for someone else.

Third, Jesus does command love for the enemy (Matthew 5:44-45. As I understand the text when we love the enemy we demonstrate that we carry the DNA of the heavenly Father. Children of the Heavenly Father are recognized as such by their love for the enemy.

As I have said many times before -

People don't care how much you know until people know how much you care!

And I would add,

People don't care how many times you say, "I love you" until you demonstrate it.

And I would add further,

God doesn't care how many time you say, "I love You, God" until your behavior demonstrates it!

2007 (c) Ronald Friesen

I was gone out of town this weekend at a retreat. There were no TVs there - just cool breezes, a wintery landscape of barren trees and brown grass and good food. I missed the news on the anti-war rallies held around the country this weekend until I arrived home.

I am a child of the 60s. Even though I was living in Canada at the time (it was an accident of my birth that I was born one mile north of the 49th parallel), I was aware of the anti-war protests occuring in the US. I was also aware of those in the US who were choosing F-1 status (alternative service status) instead of joining the military. So my feelings about the current US involvement in Iraq and Afganistan are colored by those years.

However, my feelings about this war are also tinted by my deep commitment to follow Jesus of Nazareth. When I read the Bible through the eyes of Jesus I find these words:

"You have heard people say, "Love your neighbors and hate your enemies." But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends. If you greet only your friends, what's so great about that? Don't even unbelievers do that? But you must always act like your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:43-48)

What I understand Jesus to be saying is that if we say we are children of the Heavenly Father, we need to act like the Heavenly Father.

I think it is really hard to be an enemy of someone who is loved by the Heavenly Father. If I make someone who is created by the Heavenly Father my enemy, I am denying what the Father has created. If I deny what the Father has created, I deny my own existence. If I deny what the Father has created, I am denying the Heavenly Father.

I must admit I have not worked out all the fine-tuned points of this business of love of the enemy but I am trying.

(c) 2007 Ronald Friesen

There is a truth that is often quoted as folk wisdom:

You reap what you sow!

Actually it isn't folk wisdom - it has it roots in Ancient wisdom recorded in the Bible.

It is found in St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians:

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows."

These are the principles of Sowing and Reaping:

1. You reap what you sow. If you plant carrot seeds, you expect to reap carrots, not peas. You sow hate, you reap hate. You sow love, you reap love.

2. You reap in a different season then you sow. Some people wonder how come their behavior, good or bad, doesn't always come back to them immediately. You keep loving someone, but they don't seem to respond. You will reap someday what you have sown!

3. You reap more than you sow. When you plant a kernel of corn, you hope to reap more than one kernel of corn - you expect a stalk of corn with lots of ears of corn! So when you sow a little love, you reap lots of love! And, of course, you sow some anger - well, you get the idea!

In this new year, be careful what you sow!

(C) 2007 Ronald Friesen

I wrote an earlier blog, Love One Another, Part 1. I received many supportive comments and interesting comments. I want to summarize on what I heard and expand on those comments.

Love is an action. You and I know love not merely by words such as, "I Love You". You and I know love through the actions of people toward us. Sometimes we allow ourselves to be fooled because we are so hungry for those words, "I love you" that when we hear them we become blind to the actual behavior of the one who says those words to us. This happens in many relationships marked by abuse.

"I know he loves me. He tells me he loves me. I love him." But people who love us don't hit us, lie to us, cheat on us, control us. Yet this is the kind of behavior that we overlook because we are so hungry for those words, "I love you." Being loved doesn't mean we let ourselves become the objects of other people's abuse,

Love is an action. You and I demonstrate our love by our action. We don't simply say 'I care'. We show our care by our behavior. Loving means taking time to listen. Loving means to take to do those little things for the one we love without complaining or arguing. Loving means buying the little gifts of love. Loving means taking thetime to do the activities with the one we love. When I talk to teens and ask them what they wish their parents would do for them, do you know what they say. "I wish they wouldn't talk on the cell phone in the car so we could talk!" These parents would tell us, "I love my daughter." The daughter is saying, "If you love me, don't answer the cell phone - talk to me!"

In this new year, let's love each other through our actions.

2007 (c) Ronald Friesen

There is nothing to say about this - except please watch this and hear the message.

http://www.teachermovie.com/

Ron