Coinciding with the month of love, Bro. Gary of El Shaddai shared his reflection last Sunday, conveying the importance of showing love not just in words and speech, but with action. He cited the Bible verse of 1 John 3:13-16, which emphasizes on how to love with action as Jesus did.
Bro. Gary enumerated the ways in which Jesus has shown love for us through His actions. Jesus performed miracles to feed the hungry, He healed the sick, revived the dead, showed compassion and mercy to all people, and He died on the cross to save us from our sins. Through His selfless actions, He showed His love for all of us. We, too, must learn to show our love to God and to our brothers and sisters through our actions in our own unique capacity.
In his talk, he also talked about steps on how to show God’s love. 1. Pray to God by telling God that you love him and love his creation. 2. Do good things. This will show how much you actually love God. 3. Honor God’s name. 4. Love yourself so that you can love your neighbors. 5.Love your enemies and practice forgiveness and compassion with others.
An act of forgiveness and compassion is always the hardest one to follow. To forgive is to have compassion on a person that you want to forgive. It is very challenging to offer specially to a person who hurts you so much.
All of us have our unique personality, character or attitude. We change because of God’s love. We see how Jesus loves us, His active love, His sensitivity and compassion.
The secret of forgiveness is that we need to totally surrender ourselves to God and follow Jesus. Jesus was hurt, punished and crucified on the cross, yet He manages to say: “Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
The Book of James 2:14-22 says: “Faith without action is dead.” Similarly, love without action is dead. Let our love for God be seen through our actions because actions speak louder than words.
The El Shaddai community is inviting everyone who wants to experience the Joy of praising and glorifying God in a charismatic form of worship. Join us every Sunday at 4:00-6:00 at San Antonio de Padua Parish.
Put God first, to God be the Glory.