To love is to be vulnerable.

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping your heart fully intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.

Wrap it carefully and securely with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the vault of your selfishness. But in that vault, safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken. Instead, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable, and mean.

Love Requires a Cost!

It gets its hands dirty. It takes a chance. It goes out on a limb . It takes a gamble. Love makes a statement and leaves a tender legacy. It does the unexpected, surprising, and deeply moving. It performs acts that steal the heart and leaves an impression on the soul. Often these acts are never forgotten.

The goal of the Christian life is love. And love that is not measured out bitterly by how we expect those around us to perform, or how they should look or serve us.

The REAL measure of our maturity is our love for God and our ability to love humbly.
If we fail in our love we have missed what it means to be a Christian.

“Can we do it? Can we love others in this way?

The answer, I’m afraid, is “No.”

We cannot love others like Christ – without being LIKE Christ.

The Lord, who forgave even those who crucified Him, stands ready to forgive you and I of our lack of love. He wants to show His mercy towards us today, to cleanse the loveless heart and fill it with His loving Holy Spirit.

Receive His mercy. Place your trust in Christ COMPLETELY and let Him teach you how to love as He has loved you.

“Christian love is the most costly investment you will ever make,”
C. S. Lewis in “The four loves.”

~ Mary Lindow ^©

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” THE MESSENGER ” ~ Mary Lindow
www.marylindow.com
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Mary Lindow has a passion for encouraging others in all generations and careers or vocations to live and express excellence through personal integrity, healthy accountability, and wise management of talents and skills. She is a sought after keynote inspirational and humorous speaker and teacher throughout the United States internationally in Ministers conferences, International Spiritual leaders Conferences, and in National and International training seminars for various organizations.