The Heart

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. ~ 1 Peter 1:22

Purified by obedience to the truth; what a concept for this world ~ sincere love; another fantastic concept for this world ~ love from the heart and not for what you can do for me; another forgotten concept by much of this temporary world. If I live in obedience to God's word (which rest assured is the truth even now) than part of that obedience is learning to have sincere love for each other. Sincere. Love is a choice people; it's also a feeling, but it's more of a choice and to have sincere love is also a choice. A choice to put your heart out on the line and risk it getting trampled on, a risk of loving someone who won't necessarily love you back, a choice of loving someone even when you don't see things eye to eye. My husband illustrated this choice perfectly, at least to me, when a good friend of his who is going through a separation with his wife asked him for some advice. He said, "I could write down everything that I loath about Janine and in 10 minutes highly dislike her and think she is the worst mother and wife ever. On the other hand, I could write down everything I love about her and fall in love all over again and absolutely adore her as a wife and mother. It's all in the way I chose to see her. Love may be a feeling, but it's also largely by choice." Sincere. It's something learned. Let's choose to love each other, not only our spouses, but our brothers and sisters in Christ without expecting them to always meet us where we are, but to just love them for WHO they are and WHERE THEY may be. This is part of being purified by obeying the truth: loving from the heart. ~