Love Your neighbor-Treat others well at all cost!

Scripture references: Mark 12:30-31

                                     : Matthew 7:12

When I was younger my mother taught me a simple statement: W.W.J.D (What Would Jesus Do). Every time something happened, when am about to react she would call out the phrase: “Florence! WWJD!” Trust me even if I was about to do the meanest thing to either my brother or sister I would drop it immediately. The phrase if implemented by most of us would make the world more like Jesus like.

Today’s topic is treating people nicely. Well the WWJD sort of relates to this one. So on this particular day I started telling my mum about a friend of mine. About a month or so from this particular day I asked for a favour. I begged and begged this friend to help me out on this one (particularly it was helping out my other girlfriend, I was just her spokesperson). But this my friend said no (and I don’t take no’s very nicely). So I gave up, moved on and requested the favour from another person. I had almost forgotten about the incident when this friend of mine appeared, asking for a favour form me. Haha! I was like payback time baby! Payback time.

So on this particular day I needed my mum to scream “Florence! WWJD!” I was telling her: “Mum imagine so and so asked me to do A,B,C for them . And you remember how my small favour asked was met with a capital NO. Oh am so going to say no. exactly the way s/he said it to me..” you should have seen the enthusiasm and excitement I had when I said this statement. My idea was I got to teach this guy a lesson neh? That if you go around asking people for favours you should be able to do some favours for them.

My mom took sometime reminding me of W.W.J.D,of being nice to people at all cost because I may never know when our paths may cross again. I may never know when I may need a huge favour from them too. Above all she said: “If Jesus was the one asking the favour …”

Yhoo!! I thought of how I would stop everything else just to do this favour for Jesus. At the same time I thought I love Jesus. I truly do..but my love for this particular friend of mine was questionable. I sort of had grievances over the favour issue I was denied. I can’t say I hated them but I just had some resentment and I wasn’t ready to do the favour this time around. My mums lecture had helped a bit. So I began to think maybe I should do it, despite me being the only one who gives the favours when my favours are denied.

Coincidentally, the bible study that day was on Mark 12:28-34. Where Jesus talks about the fundamental cornerstone. LOVE. He talks about our love for God and then for our neighbors. Our neighbors are the people we live with, our friends, our families. Jesus Calls us to love them.

There are no conditions for loving people. Whether they do favours for us or not.  Even if they love us back or not. He just says “love your neighbor”. During our discussion we learnt that to love means to forgive peoples mistakes, not to hold their mistakes against them forever. So here I was trying to fight resentment towards this person. In doing this I did not love them and trying to get back at them was in no way love.

So yes the Bible says do unto others   you would want them do unto you (Matthew 7:12).Love others if you want love. Treat others well as you would want others to treat you. Do small favours for friends if you want them to do small favours for you (hahaha! Not personal though).

But from my small classes through the day, I have learnt: Treat others well at all cost. All in summary as the lord put it: Love your neighbor! If you do love your neighbor, you will be nice to them at all cost.

I pray that you will find strength to love your neighbor, when they love you back and when they don’t. I pray that your love for your neighbors will be without conditions. That you will not hold their mistakes against them forever. That simply you will do the commandment as it says: Love your neighbor.

Prayer: Dear Lord! Teach us to love without conditions. Help us to treat our neighbors well. In Jesus name…

Practice! Practice! Practice to Perfection

My little nephew is learning to write his numbers, the art of learning is really fascinating. This is so because you have to discover something you haven’t done before. After which you have you have to know it to the point that you can do it without difficulty.

So you see my nephew has a difficulty with getting his 3’s right.  So now he has to practice it, so every evening when we sit in the living room.. he will be writing his 3’s. Some are right, some are not. But I like how he keeps at it, he writes and writes and writes and am sure one of these days he will get the 3’s right.

 I recall that for me to know all I do know now,I had to go through the same process. Learn to write my numbers, from which I learnt to add, subtract and divide from which I was able to learn how to solve complex statistic, algebra, trigonometry and calculus. It all started with learning to write my 1’s to 10’s and then to hundreds, and to thousands and so on.

I realized that some things in life, you ought to learn. Some you will do them right some you will do them wrong, but the principle is simple: KEEP ON IT! Slow down, reflect, re-strategize, do it again! If the thing that you are not doing very well at, is a must do it right! Then keep at it, it may not be easy! Keep at it still. It may be difficult to get it right the first time, but that doesn’t mean you should NOT LEARN IT.

There is a need to realize that every learning process doesn’t start with bigger things, it actually start with the small things. The 1’s to 10’s,the A’s to Z’s,then from there you can learn to add or subtract. Or you can learn to make words and pronounce them. It’s not a one off thing. It’s a process you have to go through… learn bits by bits until you get to the complex stuff.

Learning is a process. You don’t learn if you give up, that is why at all cost you gotta keep trying that thing until you perfect it, until you learn it! If you need practice, go for it practice and practice until you master it and you actually know it. It is a thrilling experience to finally learn something.

So don’t quit, don’t give up! It may be difficult yes! But its still doe able and the is no one  who can do it better than you!!