Daily Readings at Southeast

  Love Looks, and Love Listens “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”  James 1:19 (NIV) Healthy relationships don’t just happen. Relationships are what you make of them. If you put in the effort, you can learn the skills and wisdom to build great relationships, regardless of what they’ve been like up until now. The highest form of love is focused attention. Anyone can strengthen their relationships by learning to pay attention. When you give someone your attention and focus—when you look at them and listen to them—it’s like you give them a piece of your life. Your time is your life because you’ll never get it back. That’s why the most loving thing you can do for someone is to pay attention to them. When you stop to listen and share, you’re saying, “I care about you.” You’re affirming their value as a person and showing that you respect and accept them. In his Word, God gives a recipe for the kind of listening that makes a relationship grow. James 1:19 sa...

  Tell It Like It Could Be “Love . . . always looks for the best.”  1 Corinthians 13:7 (MSG) Many people boast, “I just tell it like it is!” Don’t tell it like it is. Tell it like it could be. When you have high expectations of other people, you encourage them to rise up to the calling God has on their lives. One example of this comes from a story about a new professor at his first faculty meeting. One of the other professors saw his teaching assignments and said, “You’ve been given two of the Section A classes. They’re the brightest students in the university. They’re really engaged and a joy to teach.” The new professor discovered that to be true—he absolutely loved teaching those students. They were smarter and asked better questions. At the end of the year, he told his department head, “I hope I get the Section A classes again next year!” The department head told him, “There is no Section A. We canceled that program six years ago.” The professor compared his grade books an...

  Lasting Love Extends Grace “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.”  Ephesians 4:2 (NLT) No relationship will survive without grace. You’ve got to cut people some slack! You need to learn to let things go. The Bible says,  “Love patiently accepts all things”  (1 Corinthians 13:7 NCV). Biblical love covers a relationship and doesn’t keep a record of every mistake. Why is grace essential to relationships? Because we are all sinners. Two imperfect people will never create a perfect relationship. The Bible says in Romans 3:10 that, “no one . . . always does what is right” (NCV). It’s never just one person’s fault. Both sides share responsibility. It takes two people to disagree! We have to learn to extend grace to each other, because forgiveness is a two-way street. We cannot receive what we’re unwilling to give to other people. You build strong relationships by treating other people the w...

Emotional Health Leads To Healthy Relationships “Being cheerful keeps you healthy.”  Proverbs 17:22 (GNT) When you need to be physically recharged, your body gives you various signs. If your stomach growls, it’s time to eat. If your eyelids get heavy, it’s time to sleep. We often overlook the other signs that signal we need emotional recharging, such as a sense of being overwhelmed, a short fuse, or avoiding people. And we find it harder to love people when our emotional tank is running low. To keep on loving well and doing the things God has called you to do, it’s critical to keep your emotional tank full. How do you do that? First, get some time alone. Even Jesus withdrew from crowds when he needed to recharge himself emotionally. Next, figure out what activities recharge you, and then make time for them. It may be a hobby, a sport, or a walk in nature. Finally, develop the habit of laughter. Laughter raises your immunity and releases endorphins in your brain. Laughter is God’s g...

  Are You Too Tired To Love Others Well? “You made my body, Lord; now give me sense to heed your laws.”  Psalm 119:73 (TLB) It’s hard to love when you’re tired. That’s right. Your physical condition has a strong impact on your relationships. Being energetic makes a big difference! What happens to your relationships when you’re run-down? Things that are usually small issues become big problems. You may be crankier, more defensive, or more critical when you’re low on energy. If you’re committed to becoming better at loving others, develop habits that refresh you physically. The Bible teaches us many principles for health, but the three most basic are proper rest, a balanced diet, and regular exercise. God never meant for you to go through life exhausted. When you’re too tired to love others well, take a good look at how much you’re resting, what you’re eating, and how often you exercise. Then make better—and often more difficult—choices to take care of yourself. You and those yo...

  Five Steps To Building a Life of Love “Keep company with [God] and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. . . . He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.”  Ephesians 5:2 (MSG) Here are five steps to building a life of love: 1. Learn how mature love acts and responds. Personal change always begins with a change in perspective. You need to get God’s perspective on what mature love is really like, because the world knows nothing about deep, genuine, unselfish love. You gain God’s perspective on mature love by getting into God’s Word. 2. Start your day with a daily reminder to love. Get up in the morning and say, “God, help me to remember that the most important thing is loving you and loving other people. If I don’t get anything else done today besides that, then this has not been a wasted day.” 3. Memorize what God says about love. God’s Word is filled with tr...

  Learning To Love “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.”  1 John 4:7 (NLT) Love is a skill. If you often struggle to love well, here’s some good news: It can be learned. That means the more you practice, the better you will become at it. In fact, God wants you to become a master at loving. He wouldn’t tell you to love others if he wasn’t going to help you do just that. Do you want to be known as a person of extraordinary love? Then rely on God’s Word and the Holy Spirit to teach and enable you to love others. To become extraordinary at it, you need to practice it over and over again. Loving beyond what seems humanly possible can feel awkward at first, but God’s supernatural love working through you makes the impossible, possible. The more you love like this, the better you will become at loving unconditionally. The Bible says in 1 John 4:7 that,  “love comes from God”  (NLT). Wh...

  We Love Because God Loves Us “We love because he first loved us.”  1 John 4:19 (NIV) One reason God wants us to love is because he  is  love, and he created us to be like him—to love. The only reason we’re able to love is because God loves us:  “Love comes from God . . . because God is love”  (1 John 4:7-8 NIV). We were created in God’s image to do two things on earth: Learn to love him and other people. Life is all about love. But love all started with God. The Bible says,  “We love because he first loved us”  (1 John 4:19 NIV). He loved us first, and that gives us the ability to love others. The only reason you can love God or anybody else is because God first loved you. He showed that love by creating you, by everything you have in life—it’s all a gift from him—and by sending Jesus to earth to die for you. In order to love others well, you first need to understand and experience how much God loves you. You shouldn’t just talk about, read abou...

  Love A while back, my family and I had a chance to ride a local streetcar. As we traversed one street, my youngest child spotted a bench with the word “love” on it. He exclaimed, “that must be the family bench!” My heart was bursting with joy. There is nothing I want more than for our home and our family to be known for our love. Why? Because that is how we should be known. Not long before Jesus was arrested, He told his disciples, “by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have a love for one another.” Love should be our defining characteristic. Furthermore, our foundational passage reminds us that love is what binds us together. “And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:14 In a world where there is so much dispute, we have the opportunity to set ourselves apart. Rather than engaging in the continuous strife on social media and contributing to the fracturing chaos surrounding us, we can be vessels...