It Does Not Say Tough Love

But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

1 John 3:17

In his writings John is affectionate toward us and he is also a tough task master.  He lets us know that if we say we are Christians, we need to behave in a Christ like manner and do what Jesus commanded us to do – love one another. 

One day, my mother sent me to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread.  A head of me in line was Mike.  It was summer and he was wearing a dirty undershirt, torn pants and no shoes, and he was paying for a loaf of bread with deposit money from pop bottles he salvaged from an overgrown lot next to the store.  Mike was short six cents and the cashier sent him back outside to find three more bottles.  Bread was twenty-eight cents a loaf then.  Don’t you think someone standing in line could have paid the six cents?   Nobody did. 

It could be argued that it did not hurt Mike to dig through the weeds for pop bottles, but if someone would have said, “Let me get that for you,” and paid that last six cents, Mike might have seen God’s love.

Don’t miss an opportunity to show God’s love.