 Well, I am absolutely overwhelmed at the privilege to come and share with you from God's Word. It is, I consider it a huge, huge blessing to me and a privilege to be here with you, to be in this church. I adore your pastor's wife. I would love to bring her home with me. Steal them. We have a big state, Texas. There's a lot of room. I was going to say something else, but I won't say it. Economy. Sorry. I just, I just want to represent for Texas, okay? We pray for you Christians in California. We do. I mean, we honestly do. When we think, you know, when you start to think, oh, you know, our life is just, and then at a prayer meeting, we'll bring up the Christians that are really suffering in California. Because not your weather, of course today, it's kind of like my weather. I don't know what, I came in, it was 90. I left Houston and it was 56 or something. So I brought the heat. I don't know. But I, we do, we pray for you. We pray for your state, your state's government. We see the trauma that's coming and just the whole atmosphere, spiritual atmosphere that our country is facing. And if ever we needed to walk in love, if ever we needed to stand out and to learn how to love others, it's right now in our country. So would you bow with me for water prayer? Lord, I just thank you so much for this incredible time. And Lord, I just ask right now that you would take these few minutes and these notes and Lord, you would make them yours. I just confess, just like easily said, Lord, there's nothing I can do without you. And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would take over and that you would use this time, Lord, to filter through our minds. Some that are distracted about things going on at home or things left undone. I pray that you would insulate our thinking right now so we could focus on your words. We can give you the place of priority. And Lord, again I know there is nothing that I could say and I have nothing to say, Lord, apart from you. So I pray that you would keep me focused. Help me to speak your words, Lord. Just use this time, Father, that teach us how to love, Lord. We've learned so much about what love is and the love of God teaches us how to implement that to the people around us, especially those close to us. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. An elderly widow decided it was too much trouble to get all of her kids and all of her grandkids Christmas presents. So she decided for the very first time this year she was going to send them a check with a card. After a few days after mailing the cards out, she picked up her checkbook and realized she forgot to insert the checks. She cringed as she thought of all those kids opening a card from grandma with a note that said, buy your own present. It pays to slow down and prepare. And the most important preparation is the preparation of the heart. In fact there is no greater expression of a prepared heart than its love. Even the world, even in the world with its limited understanding of what Christianity is, they know that Christians are to love and they tell us that all the time, don't they? That's our distinguishing mark and that's the focus of this third session, Learning to Love Others. So turn with me, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 5. And if you don't have a Bible, you can love the person next to you and get real close. Paul is talking in Ephesians 5 about the worthy walk. He is beginning the practical aspect of Christian living. And just so we have a flow of thoughts, you know where I'm going and you can realize, oh good, she's almost done. We're going to have three points today. We're going to look at first the plea for love, then the pattern of love, and then finally the practice of love. And first the plea. Look at verse 1 in Ephesians chapter 5. It says, Paul says, therefore be followers of God as dear children. That phrase, followers of God is really the crux of this whole passage. It sets the tone. That word follower in the original Greek is the word mimitai. We get our word mimic from it and we know what that means. A mimic is someone who copies specific characteristics. And what Paul is saying is as a Christian, as a believer, even if you just got saved, as a believer, we are to mimic God. Why? Because he says in verse 1, you are his dear children. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ at that very point, you became a child of God. And as his child, we're to bear his likeness. And you know what? As women, we can all understand this. All children, whether you're own or you're watching another family, all children to some degree resemble their parents. Have you noticed that? How many times do we look at our own children, sometimes in shock, at how much they are like us? And not just in appearance, more likely in mannerisms and speech. Have you ever walked in on one of your, the siblings, they're arguing and you hear something. Where did you hear that from? You said it to me just an hour ago. You know? They mimic. That's what children do. And as believers, as children of God, we are to mimic God. We're to imitate him. Paul says, therefore, be followers of God as dear children and walk in love. That's the plea. The plea is for us to live imitating God specifically his love. Our lives are to be characterized by love. But what does that mean? Well, just mentioning that word, and even though we've had two sessions to explain that to us, because of its familiarity, we can almost turn a deaf ear. Oh, I know all about love. I know what love is. The secret to Bible teaching is to keep reinforcing biblical principles in different ways. So you're hearing the same thing just in a different way. Principles we know in mind, but tend to forget in behavior. In other words, if you've heard this before, and I guarantee you you have, God is repeating it for a reason. And the reason is he wants us to start living it. So he says, verse one, therefore walk in love. That word walk in the Greek is parapeteo, and it means lifestyle. It's speaking of a lifestyle. In other words, this is not something you do sporadically. It's not something you do weekly. It's daily. In fact, it's moment by moment. And I understand this is not a suggestion like Gisela said. This is a command. Love is to be a moment by moment vital part of our Christian life. In fact, the most normal natural thing for a Christian is to live a life of love. And because of that, if you're not experiencing as a believer a total life of love, it's not because it isn't there. It's because you're not allowing it to function. But let me try and put this in an illustration just to make it clear. Think of it like this, which is easier to breathe or to hold your breath? I mean, most of us since we've been here have been breathing, right? Since you got here. I mean, we haven't had an ambulance pull up. No one has an oxygen tank. I don't know. But ever since you've been here, you haven't had a problem breathing. In fact, you haven't even thought of it until I said it right now. You didn't get up this morning and say to yourself, okay, remember when I'm at that conference, breathe, breathe. Keep breathing. Don't forget to breathe. No one sitting next to you is nudging you. Are you breathing? Are you still breathing? More likely during this session, are you sleeping? You're all here right now just breathing. The pressure of the atmosphere around you exerts its pressure on your lungs and it forces you to breathe. It's natural. On the other hand, it's very difficult to hold your breath for a prolonged period of time, right? You all know that. In fact, if you do that for too long, what happens? You die, okay? You die. Why? Because you're fighting against what is natural. When you became a Christian beloved, the most natural thing in the world was that the love of God was shed abroad in your heart, Romans 5.5, and that love naturally flows out of you. In other words, that love should permeate so much so that it's just a way of life for you to love. That's what Paul is saying. Unfortunately, sometimes we try to hold our spiritual breath, right? For whatever reason, God says, I want you to love that person. That's why they're in your life. It's not a mistake. It was planned before the foundations of the world. Love that person. And you know what we do? Oh, you know it. I'm not the only one. You know? And you know what we... I guess we come to that point where you try and lessen it in your own mind. You think, oh, I love her in the Lord. I just don't want a vacation with her, okay? I love her. And Paul is saying, if you're going to call yourself a child of God, you need to act like it. You need to walk like he walked. You need to stop holding your breath around that person. That's the plea. Now the pattern of love. There are three facets of God's love from this passage that should be seen in our lives. I mean, if we're going to define what it is to love others, these are things that need to be evident. And we're going to spend just a little bit of time developing this. First, God's love is forgiving. Look again at verse one. He says, therefore, that word, if you know, always takes you back to the previous passage. In other words, Paul says, in light of what I just said, and what does he just said? Look at verse 32 of chapter 4. And be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. Walk in love. How does God's love display? How does it display death? It's displayed in forgiveness. That's a quality of God's love. His love is literally drenched in forgiveness. In other words, if you want to know if you're a loving Christian, you can say it like this. Just measure your love through your attitude of forgiveness. You see, beloved, when God wanted to reveal the measure of his love towards us, the Bible says that God so loved the world that he took unworthy wicked sinners and he died on the cross to bear their sins so that he could bring them into an everlasting, eternal relationship with himself. That's the measure of God's love. And that's what we're to imitate so that our love is best measured in our ability to forgive the people around us and the people in the world. So today, measure your love. Do you walk in love? Paul says, we are to forgive, notice, as God for Christ's sake has forgiven me. What does that mean, just this? No matter what anybody does to me, whether it be in my personal family, the family of believers, the church, or in the world, no matter how they hurt me, harm me, slander me, offend me, whatever it is, Christ has already paid the full penalty for that sin. Jesus bore in his body all of our sins. If someone sins against me and my reaction in my humanness is to be angry and bitter and resentful and vengeful, beloved, that sin. And Jesus Christ already bore that sin in his own body on the tree. That's 1 Peter 2, 24. He already spilled his blood for that sin. If the God of the universe could take that sin, put it on a cross on his own son and forgive that person, who am I to demand blood from that person? See, the next time you want to lash out at someone, the next time you want to say an unkind word or be bitter or gossip or retaliate or hold a grudge, remember the very thing they did to you, Jesus Christ already paid the price. God for Christ's sake forgives you and, beloved, we for Christ's sake are to forgive the people around us. And again, the depth of our love, the measure of our love is seen in how willing we are to forgive and extend forgiveness. Look at your life. And I know in my own heart, believe me, I'm only talking to myself, how much do you forgive? You see, if you're here and in your mind you're holding a grudge against somebody and that doesn't have to be necessarily said, it's just between you and God, which should never last more than a second, but you're mulling it over and you can't let go of it. If someone in your home has offended you, someone in the workplace has slandered you, if you're angry with someone, plotting something against them, beloved, that's not their problem. That's your problem. Your inability to forgive reveals the measure of your love. But there's another side to this. It's not just how you forgive, it's how much you know that you have already been forgiven. You see, you can tell a person's love by how they're willing to forgive others, but you can also tell someone's love by how much they know they've been forgiven. Forgiveness is a pledge. It's a statement of undeserved, unearned love that says, no matter what you've done to me, there's no anger, there's no desire for vengeance. I feel no self-pity for myself. Instead, I extend my love to you fully. That's forgiveness. That's forgiveness the way God forgives. And listen, every one of us, as a believer, we crave God's forgiveness, especially after a failure. We saw that. Diesel has shared that. How hard it is, or how difficult when you fail, and yet you come to God and He is quick to forgive. Quick to forgive, quick to release. He never holds a grudge. He's not like us. We long to hear God say, I heard your prayer. Your sins are forgiven. Be comforted. Come back into fellowship. And maybe you're here today and God brought you here and He wants you back. But, beloved, there may be some here who are hearing this and God is reminding you that there are people in your life who need to sense love from you through forgiveness. You need to let that go. You see, the natural outcome of being forgiven is to want to forgive. And the people who have the greatest sense of forgiveness in their own lives are those who will grant them. When you realize the depth of all you've been forgiven, you'll forgive in measure to that. There's a great illustration of this in Luke chapter 7. It's a story of Simon the Pharisee and a woman with Jesus. Simon has invited Jesus to his home for a meal. He's planned this whole evening out. It was going to be great until a woman, a description in the Bible. A woman in the city who was a sinner. I just want to, I can embrace that. I think that's me. A woman in the city who was a sinner slipped into the courtyard and spoiled the whole night for Simon. She came over to Jesus. She made a whole scene. She's crying. She's wiping his feet with her hair. She pours out this ointment and Simon sees this and knows what kind of woman she was. And Jesus gives a little parable about forgiveness to Simon. And this is how it ends. He says, Simon, her sins which are many, in other words, God recognizes she was a sinner. Her sins which are many have been forgiven. So she shows much love. But a person who has been forgiven little in their mind shows little love. You see, Simon's problem in tab sin was he didn't recognize it in himself. He was so self-righteous it blinded him to his own sins and he misunderstood and misrepresented the woman at Jesus' feet. His need for forgiveness was greater than hers. And his need to extend forgiveness was so needful. One reason a person struggles with loving others through forgiveness is because when you're not experiencing the cleansing work of the Spirit of God in your own life on a daily basis, when you begin to rationalize your own sin looking at the speck in your brother's eye, not realizing you have a plank in your own you begin to develop a coldness not only towards others but certainly towards him. And rather than love you find yourself critical bitter, suspicious, unkind proud, self-righteous and self-justifying. See if you have an issue with someone ask someone close to you do I sound critical? Be careful. Have a chair nearby because if they're honest you know when you have a grudge it seeps through every part of your life and especially out your mouth when you're holding back forgiveness you become this stuff comes out that shouldn't be but when you experience God's love covering a multitude of your own sins you tend to look at people differently you serve in the church differently and you love differently. Maybe today you need to spend some time re-cleaning yourself with the love of God through his forgiveness experiencing it in your own life. Asking God to search you and know you and then be willing to extend forgiveness to someone else. Again the gauge of your spirituality is not how much charisma you have it's not how much theology you know the gauge of true spiritual life is how you love others it's kind of like a Christmas tree you know can you tell what kind of tree it is by the gifts that are underneath oh look at all those gifts I think it's a Cyprus no no you can't do that the gifts make no difference you can't tell about the tree by the gifts but by the fruit the tree produces it's the same with Christians some Christians can look so dressed up on the outside they can have all the gifts activated they're all lit up but if they have no spiritual fruit the tree is withering so love Tartarus others first if anything it's forgiving second it's unconditional literally it means without a response in other words God loves you if you never respond to him that's what unconditional means God loves you if you hate him till you die because it's the nature of God to love it's unconditional you're gonna love regardless of the response you get from your love third God's love is self sacrificing look at verse 2 he says walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us biblical love at its core is an act of self sacrificial giving true biblical love says I will love you even if I never get anything out of it it is completely sacrificial it is the complete opposite of what we see in the world around us the world says I'll love you because of what I get back from it God's love says I love you if I never get anything out of it this is the love we're to imitate listen you wanna make a difference in your marriage you wanna save your marriage if it's on that last thread love like this love like this you wanna make a difference in your friendships start loving like this commit yourself to love not for anything you get out of it but simply because you wanna be like Christ because his love is in you and you want it flowing out of you think about it Jesus Christ didn't love us because of what he could get out of the relationship right? he loved us the pain the relationship would bring it's what you see in John 13 the very night of the Lord's betrayal the night before he goes to the cross the disciples his closest companions the ones that were there to the end are arguing about who's gonna have who's gonna be greatest in the kingdom and that was their big concern he is carrying the weight that's about to happen and their biggest concern is who is gonna be the top dog the son of God who is about to bear the sins of the world for every human being that ever lived and they don't even give it a thought it's the epitome of selfishness and in the midst of all of that no one would dare stoop to wash someone else's feet because listen you can't stoop when you're fighting and arguing about who's gonna be on the top you're not gonna do that so the meal began and after the meal Jesus rising from supper it says laid aside his garments took a towel poured water in a basin and began to wash their feet this is unconditional forgiving sacrificial love in action and do you notice he never asked a response from any of them he doesn't come up to Peter and say now look knock it off start showing love say that he washed their feet regardless of their response because love doesn't depend on a response John 1313 he says you call me master and lord and you say well for I am if I then your lord and master have washed your feet you also ought to wash one another's feet for I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you in other words you saw how I lived unconditional total total forgiveness complete self-sacrificing I expect you to do the same to one another not only do I expect it I equipped you to do it because I poured my love into your heart that's the pattern of love beloved if we're gonna love others we have to do it with a forgiveness that has no limit unconditionally with no dependence upon their response and we must love sacrificially with the giving of ourselves not seeking something from them when Jesus Christ loved us he did it through total forgiveness he never asked for a response and he did it sacrificially that's the kind of love we experience every day that's the kind of love we need to imitate look again at Ephesians 5 he goes on and he says in verse 2 walk in love as Christ also has loved you and given himself for you and offering sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma the ultimate act of love was at the cross and it was to God a fragrant aroma in other words it was pleasing to him it was acceptable beloved if you want to live your life pleasing God let your life to rise to him like a sweet smelling aroma then let your life be characterized by his love that's what Paul is saying I read an account that really illustrates this for us I think in our era that we live Teddy Stollert qualified as one of the least in the group disinterested in school musty wrinkled clothes hair never combed one of those kids in school with just a faceless expressionless face sort of glassy unfocused stare when miss Thompson spoke to Teddy he always answered with a one syllable word unattractive, unmotivated and distant he was just plain hard to like even though his teacher said she loved all the class the same deep down inside miss Thompson wasn't being completely truthful whenever she marked Teddy's paper she got a certain perverse pleasure out of putting X's by the wrong answers and when she put the F at the top she did it with a flare she should have known better she knew Teddy's past records she knew more about him than she wanted to admit his past records read this first grade Teddy shows promise with his work and attitude he has a poor home situation second grade Teddy could do better mother is seriously ill he receives little help at home third grade Teddy is a good boy but far too serious he is a slow learner his mother died this year fourth grade Teddy is very slow but well behaved his father shows no interest in him Christmas came and the boys and girls in miss Thompson's class all brought their Christmas presents they piled them on her desk and crowded around to watch her open them among the presents was one from Teddy Stollard she was surprised that he had even bought her a present but he had Teddy's gift was wrapped in a brown paper bag held together with scotch tape and on the bag was written for miss Thompson from Teddy when she opened Teddy's gift out fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the stones missing and a bottle of cheap perfume the other children began to giggle and smirk over Teddy's gift but miss Thompson had enough sense to silence them by immediately putting on the perfume and the bracelet holding her wrist up for the children to smell she said doesn't it smell great the children took their cues from the teacher and agreed ooh at the end of the day when school was over and the other children had left Teddy lingered behind he came slowly over to her desk and said softly miss Thompson you smell just like my mother and her bracelet looks really pretty on you too I'm glad you like my presents when Teddy left miss Thompson got on her knees and asked God to forgive her the next day when the children came to school they were welcomed by a new teacher miss Thompson had become a different teacher a different person she no longer was just a teacher she had become an agent of God she was now a person committed to loving her children and doing things for them that would live on after her she helped all her children but especially the slow ones and especially Teddy Stollard by the end of that year Teddy showed dramatic improvement he had caught up with most of the other children in the class and even passed some she didn't hear from Teddy for a long time and one day she received a note that read dear miss Thompson I wanted you to be the first to know I will be graduating high school second in my class love teddy stollard four years later another note came dear miss Thompson they just told me I will be graduating first in my class I wanted you to be the first to know the university has not been easy but I like it and as of today I am Theodore Stollard MD how about that I wanted you to be the first to know I'm getting married next month on the 27th and I want you to come and sit where my mother would have sat if she were alive you are the only family I have now dad died last year love teddy stollard miss Thompson went to the wedding sat where Teddy's mother would have sat she deserved to sit there she had done something for him that he could never forget she loved him beloved that's loving others let me ask you what is the measure of your love do you have a teddy stollard in your life someone God is asking you to love as he loves are you willing to look beyond the outward and just love and maybe that teddy stollard is someone in your home first the plea then the pattern finally is the practice because we all know it's not enough to just hear we need to do how do we do that again like you said the fruit of the spirit is love so if you walk Galatians 516 if you're walking in the spirit you won't fulfill the lusts of your flesh but the fruit of the spirit we need to walk in the spirit but along with that there are some practical things that we can do first realize beloved to walk in love towards others you have to recognize that love is a choice a God they love God's love is not built around feelings it's not a feeling you can't control it's a choice you can control in other words that excuse I just don't feel that love for them yeah that's not going to work with God that's not going to work sorry it can be very freeing though to know that it is a choice because sometimes we hear people say I don't feel that love or I struggle feeling love it's not about feelings it's about choosing I love what CS Lewis said do not waste your time bothering whether you feel love for your neighbor act as if and as soon as you act it out as soon as you start walking in love you'll find one of the great secrets of the Christian life when you're behaving as if you love someone you will find yourself loving them if you injure someone you injure someone you dislike you'll find yourself disliking them more in other words your choice makes the difference your choice is like the engine of a train your feelings are supposed to be the caboose that's the way God designed it feelings follow the engine like a caboose follows like a caboose follows the engine if you make your emotions your feelings the engine you're going to struggle your whole life until eventually you derail yourself and everyone around you but if you step out and choose to love your feelings will follow and let me say this the choice you have to make over and over again it's just not a one time thing in other words you don't love someone and say shh that's over let's get on to the important things you know I don't have to think about that anymore I've been waiting a long time to love that person and now it's off the list just like Gisela said I finally did it I can move on that's not how love works in fact it's the complete opposite the more you love the more you should love the more it's exercised the less it's satisfied in other words you have a reservoir of love that is unlimited and immeasurable and your responsibility is to distribute that to people your whole life long everyone you meet so first recognize it's a choice second remember it's a command Ephesians 5 1 is a command he says it like this in Matthew 22 you're God with all your heart soul mind and strength verse 38 and you shall love your neighbor as yourself that's a command the law and the prophets hang on that if you want to narrow down to those two things that's what it is and like Gisela said John 14 15 if you love me keep my commandments in other words it's a command and if you want to show love to God keep his commandments I love that word keep it literally means to watch her to guard that precious thing like a priceless diamond you treasure it in other words it's not the kind of obedience that's forced a forced pressured obedience it's not a crushing legalism it's not the idea okay I heard this went to this conference and now I have to do this you know God is bringing that person to mind and you're oh no if I don't do this I'm going to get in trouble with God he's going to be mad at me and I'm in time out for the rest of the week I have to submit to this as painful as it is that's not what it means it's not a pressure to obey it's a desire to please God can I put it in an illustration my husband I adore him among other athletic abilities he was a sprinter he got all kinds of trophies we have them all in the garage somewhere but he was a good sprinter I mean he was like top well I have come to find out after about 30 years that sprinting is really in his blood because when he drives he sprints very fast, very short and he had a little car fast little car a few years ago and he sprinted himself right into a ticket and you know they come home he had left for work 30 minutes later he's back they come in with that look on their face and you're like what's wrong something happened he goes well it's that car and he goes it's that car I got a ticket and he goes it's that car it's an evil demon car I'm trading cars with you today beer keys I go leave the demon car with me and I wasn't thinking I wasn't going to do anything that day and he said I'm taking your car this is ridiculous I can't believe it I got a ticket so he goes to work and I was thinking I wasn't doing anything that day and about 2 hours went by and I remembered I got to go to the bank I have this one thing to do I'm just going to do it and I go outside with my keys and there it was the little demon car I'm just going to go and come back it's all I'm doing so I get in the car and I'm going out and you know cute little car we don't have it anymore but it was a cute little car and we have you don't have this in California but in Texas we have stretches of land where there's just land you know just land and cows and I was going to take a shortcut to the bank and miss all the traffic lights and go down this one road and I don't know if it was like in cattle buggy carriage days when they made the speed limit for that street that don't let the horse go over 30 but it was 30 miles an hour well I wasn't even thinking I just wanted to get to the bank and come home and do what I was doing and I'm in the car and I'm going down I didn't even look down the speedometer and all I saw was a flash going by me and it looked like a police car and of course it was and you know what you do when you know it's a police car okay some of you don't know but let me explain what you do you immediately take your foot off the gas okay and you resume the position 10 and 2 10 and 2 and you are looking in the rear-view mirror he made a U-turn he got right on me and I'm 10 and 2 and he's passing me you know was that a raccoon and I'm just I'm sweating I'm thinking I'm praying you know Lord please if there's any mercy left in you for me you know but of course we know that there is mercy new every day but it was the afternoons maybe I used all mine up and I was just thinking I cannot get a ticket he just got a ticket a few hours ago I'm waiting I'm panicking and waiting where's the registration I hope it's in his car do I have my license oh my goodness and he just kept following me I couldn't handle it I just couldn't handle it I pulled over and do you know he pulled over with me and he comes up you know like they do I mean I think they purposely wait they come up really slow I have my thing I'm ready to give my here it is and he goes I wrote my window he's like do you know why I pulled you over I went no your lights aren't on and he looks back and he goes you're right he goes why did you pull over I couldn't handle the pressure it was so much pressure and then I looked at him and I know because I said can you get a ticket if your lights don't work he was like give me your license and he went back and he came and he said slow down no ticket because his lights didn't work but you know what that is not what Jesus is talking about sometimes we obey out of pressure oh this is so hard but I'm going to do it and God is saying that's not what I want it's not some legalistic you have to do this when he says keep my commandments it's much more than some outward pressure it's a desire not because I'm afraid to mess up because God is watching me and he's following me my heart's greatest desire is to obey him because of what he's done for me because how much I love him it isn't oh I have to do this the idea is I can't wait to do this after all he's done for me I can't wait to do this you see when you love someone anything they desire becomes a longing to fulfill certainly with our precious Lord for a Christian obedience is a sweet encouraging word and obedience to love is an expression of my own love towards him it's a choice and it's a command and finally you need to challenge yourself every day challenge yourself to love the people around you challenge yourself to love the people you come across how mend a quarrel that you're in take the blame for it that's loving let an old bitterness die let it go no time for that forget a wrong that was done to you tell someone you love them someone who would be surprised to hear it from you dismiss a suspicion in your mind that you are holding against someone and ask the Spirit of God to give you trust for that person encourage someone you know who's discouraged keep a promise you made the promise keep it that's loving train yourself to say thank you thank you Lord for everything in your life all the time pray for an enemy send a check to someone you know has a need love as Christ loved us forgiving self-sacrificing unconditional love it's a choice it's a command and it's a challenge that's the plea the pattern and the practice would you pray with me Lord I just thank you so much for your word I thank you Lord for just these precious women who've been so patient and Father I pray that you would even now even right now Lord put that person in our mind make it clear to us right now what we need to do to show love maybe it's forgiveness maybe it's sacrificing for them give us the ability to choose and to love to choose because it's what pleases you thank you Lord we ask these things in Jesus name Amen