Devotion: Friday, July 20

1 Corinthians 13:7- "Love believes all things, hopes all things"

The more relationships I develop and the further they develop, I realize the key to loving people in general, is to believe the best in them! EVERYONE has positives and EVERYONE has negatives, and what makes relationships difficult is that the negative is easy to focus on! This is never more true than in marriages where two sinful, selfish, people live together and see each other at their worst. This also shows through in the workplace, where multiple sinful people are together insisting their own agendas and pushing for what they think is best! What should separate believers from non-believers, saved sinners and unsaved sinners, is whether we focus on the positive attributes, or the negative attributes in people! What we think about and dwell on, conditions our hearts! If we are constantly dwelling on the negative attributes in people and the negative things that people have said to us, it will begin to kill marriages and relationships! Divorces are a probability when we dwell on what our spouse is or isn't doing for us or to us! Church splits happen when people focus on the negative in church leadership and what other people aren't doing instead of what they are doing! Hate breeds when our minds are fixed on how people have hurt us, manipulated us and treated us unfairly! We have to avoid dwelling on thoughts of negativity, or Christ will not be magnified in and through our churches, marriages and relationships!
The only reason we should ever think about negative things in our relationships is to pray for them! Everyone fails and has areas of growth, the sad thing about being a human is that it is easy to downplay our own negative attributes and look under a microscope at the people's around us! Love chooses to believe the best in people! Let's be a church that loves! Let's be a church that ALWAYS believes the best and ALWAYS hopes! When you think on things that are lovely, pure and above reproach, it is easier to love! Church, we have to lead our thoughts and not let our thoughts and emotions lead us! I hope you all have a great weekend and we can't wait to see you Sunday! We love you!

Serving Him Together,
Jeff Marburger