sacrificial love on Leprosy

Father Damien was a priest who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers. He moved to Kalawao, a village on the island of Molokai in Hawaii that had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony...

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. Th...

An American pastor once asked an Indonesian missionary who works among Indonesians but with a different people group from his own, “Are you afraid you’ll get caught?” Christian mission work in Indones...

Our bond, which you resent, consists in mutual love, for we know not how to hate; we call ourselves ‘brethren’ to which you object, as members of one family in God, as partners in one faith, as joint ...

You shall love your crooked neighbor with all your crooked heart.

Love is hunting for bigger game than happiness. Love is a union of souls. When one member of a couple suffers from Alzheimer’s, the other doesn’t just go away. Instead, as Lewis puts it, love says, “B...

An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatibl...

To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then, and be “safe”?

We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts...

Different Levels of Maturity? There is an interesting dynamic I have noticed that often occurs as people begin to mature into adults. In my life it was a stage that took place following high school, ...

Leader: God’s Word tells us that love is patient and kind. People: It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. Leader: Love does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it i...

Selfless love is always costly. Fear can’t afford it, pride doesn’t understand it, but friends never forget it.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Preaching Commentary Different Levels of Maturity? There is an interesting dynamic I have noticed that often occurs as people begin to mature into adults. In my life it was a stage that took place ...

He drew a circle that shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. A...

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as som...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Betrayal and Supper Judas’ motivation for betraying Jesus is not clear in Matthew and Mark. It certainly was not the money because “30...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Betrayal and Supper Judas’ motivation for betraying Jesus is not clear in Matthew and Mark. It certainly was not the ...

During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Corrie ten Boom tried to enlist a pastor to help hide Jews. Showing him a Jewish baby in need of rescue, the pastor said “No. Definitely not. We could lo...

Until we learn to love others as ourselves, it's difficult to blame broken people who desperately try to affirm themselves when no one else will.

Love ever gives, Forgives, outlives, And ever stands with open hands, And while it lives it gives. For this is love’s prerogative, To give – and give – and give.

Love seeketh not Itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair. So sung a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle’s feet; B...

There is a Gethsemane hid in all love

Cruciform love is welcoming the immigrant simply because they bear the image of God, even if the only thing they bring to us is hassle and possible harm. Cruciform love is praying for those who persec...

If I’m only willing to love the people who are nice to me, the ones who see things the way I do, and avoid all the rest, it’s like reading every other page of the Bible and thinking I know what it say...

O Lord, We marvel that you would take on flesh and blood in order to be crucified, killed, and buried for us. You humbled yourself and submitted to the hatred of sinful men, accepting the thorns, the ...

What we choose to love is very important for what we love leads our eyes, ears, and hearts on a pilgrimage that shapes the texture of our lives.

Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. it is an active noun like struggle. to love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

There is the story Dan Mazzeo tells about his father, “Pop,” a first-generation Italian American who was struggling with metastatic liver and lung cancer. When doctors gave him less than a year, Pop b...