Loving Near and Far

“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar;  for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from him;  whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  1 John 4:20

The quote below by Elizabeth Charles was included in my devotional reading. Elizabeth was an Anglican author. Her works include The Voice of Christian Life in Song; or, Hymns and Hymn-writers of Many Lands and Ages (1859), The Three Wakings, and Other Poems (1859), Wanderings over Bible Lands and Seas (1862), The Early Dawn (1864), Winifred Bertram and the World She Lived In (1866), Poems (1867), The Draytons and the Davenants (1867), Songs Old and New (1882), and Conquering and to Conquer/The Diary of Brother Bartholomew. Our Seven Homes (1896) is autobiographical. A number of her hymns appeared in The Family Treasury, edited by William Argnot(1808–1875).

“It requires far more of the constraining love of Christ to love our cousins and neighbors as members of the heavenly family, than to feel the heart warm for our suffering brethren in Tuscany or Madeira.  To love the whole church is one thing;  to love–that is, to delight in the graces and veil the defects–of the person who misunderstood me and opposed my plans yesterday, whose peculiar infirmities grate on my most sensitive feelings, or whose natural faults are precisely those from which my natural character most revolts, is quite another.”

Can you love all Christian brothers and sisters, near and far?

A Quote on Serving

This was part of my devotional reading this morning, and I enjoyed it so much I thought I’d share.  The writer is Elizabeth Charles, who was an Anglican.  She wrote over 50 books, but her best known was a story about Martin Luther, The Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family.  It was published in 1862 and subsequently translated into most of the European languages, Arabic and many Indian dialects.

“Surely none are so full of cares, or so poor in gifts, that to them also, waiting patiently and trustfully on God for His daily commands, He will not give direct ministry for Him, increasing according to their strength and their desire.  There is so much to be set right in the world, so many to be led and helped and comforted, that we must continually come in contact with such in our daily life.  Let us only take care, that, by the glance being turned inward, or strained onward, or lost in reverie, we do not miss our turn of service, and pass by those to whom we might have been sent on an errand straight from God.

In other words, there are opportunities to use our gifts and serve God all around us, every single day. Open your eyes!  Don’t miss your chance!

God loves you and so do I,

Joan