Love

The Lord has been impressing on me this week the importance of sharing His love with everyone around me. One of the reasons I am so excited to go to Africa is because of the chance to share God's love with His oppressed people. But what about the people I am around now? What about my team mates, the other students in the DTS, the homeless man downtown?

If I love a child begging on a street corner in Africa but am irritated by the cashier at a grocery store in Indiana, than the love I feel for the beggar child is merely an emotion that stems from pity, rather than a genuine expression of the Father's love for that individual. The mere feeling of emotion will have no lasting effect on a person, but an expression of the Father's love has the power to change a person's life forever. Somehow it seems easier to love grimy children in a foreign country than the people we encounter in our day-to-day life in our corner of the world. But if this is true of us, then we are not full of God's love, no matter what we might feel for the grubby child we see on a mission trip that begs to hold our hand.  I want to love every individual that I encounter with the Father's love, whether I'm in the sprawling metropolis of Auburn (my hometown), the big island of Hawaii, or a mud hut in Africa. 

Sharing the love of God brings the kingdom of God to earth.