Have you ever stood at the crossroads of decision, where extending a hand in love and compassion could make all the difference? Our latest conversation takes you on a reflective journey through the heart of these virtues, inspired by the wisdom of Luke 10:25-29. We delve into how our hearts can steer our thoughts, and in turn, our words and actions. Through personal stories and scriptural insights, I challenge you to consider your role in nurturing love and compassion, not only in your personal life but also in your role as a parent, teacher, or leader. It's a candid exploration of the choices we face and the profound effects that committing to these virtues can have on our lives and the lives of those around us.
Listening to this episode, you'll hear how the transformative power of love and compassion, grounded in our Christian faith, can uplift us during life's trials. I share my convictions about the gospel of salvation and how the Lord's sacrifice calls us to act with empathy and support, especially when others are struggling. Whether it's addiction or the everyday ups and downs, this episode serves as both a prayerful support and a heartfelt invitation to foster spiritual growth and fellowship within our community. Join us as we extend a hand of kindness across the spaces we occupy, acknowledging the seasons of plenty and want, and as we collectively navigate the journey of choosing love and compassion day by day.
Have you ever stood at the crossroads of decision, where extending a hand in love and compassion could make all the difference? Our latest conversation takes you on a reflective journey through the heart of these virtues, inspired by the wisdom of Luke 10:25-29. We delve into how our hearts can steer our thoughts, and in turn, our words and actions. Through personal stories and scriptural insights, I challenge you to consider your role in nurturing love and compassion, not only in your personal life but also in your role as a parent, teacher, or leader. It's a candid exploration of the choices we face and the profound effects that committing to these virtues can have on our lives and the lives of those around us.
Listening to this episode, you'll hear how the transformative power of love and compassion, grounded in our Christian faith, can uplift us during life's trials. I share my convictions about the gospel of salvation and how the Lord's sacrifice calls us to act with empathy and support, especially when others are struggling. Whether it's addiction or the everyday ups and downs, this episode serves as both a prayerful support and a heartfelt invitation to foster spiritual growth and fellowship within our community. Join us as we extend a hand of kindness across the spaces we occupy, acknowledging the seasons of plenty and want, and as we collectively navigate the journey of choosing love and compassion day by day.
Come join us at our virtual events monthly. Visit our website to learn more.
Speaker 1:
Sow. I, I, I, I I. Good morning, tracy. Good morning everybody again. Y'all, if you're on the Facebook streets, please just watch the YouTube live. The link has been sent and please don't forget to love and like and share. That's an easy, easy and free way to support this channel and this program. So good morning everybody who will be listening also to us on wherever you get your podcast later this week, audibles by five. I know I always forget people in iTunes. Buzzsprout everybody. A good morning to the folks watching on Upraide deck live the face channel this morning. Linkedin Twitter I might have missed, not Twitter X.
Speaker 1:
I'm sure I missed somebody, but this is gonna be a really good message. It's gonna be a short message because it's more. I think this is again because this is the last Message in the series called matters of the heart that we did for February. We're gonna be talking about love and compassion, and the reason I'm saying this is gonna be a short one is you're gonna have to make a decision. The one thing that we have is free will, and at some point You're not gonna be able to blame God. You're not gonna be able to blame anyone, circumstances or anyone around you. You're gonna have to be. You're gonna have to make a decision Whether or not you are gonna show love and compassion Compassion. So I'm gonna share from the, from the Bible, obviously, I'm gonna take us into the ward and give you an example of scripture and we're going to walk through that, and then I'm going to challenge you, those of y'all who are watching whether you're watching live or the replay to make a decision. And maybe it's not today, but maybe this, you know, prompts your heart to really decide what you're going to do about this thing love and compassion. So, lord, we just thank you. Thank you for giving us another Thursday, for letting us survive another week, giving us breath this morning, you know, I thank you even for this platform and I pray that anyone who needs to hear this message, they will hear it, they will receive it. I thank you, holy Spirit, for your presence and use me now. I'm yours and just let your love and your compassion just pour out through me, through my words and my eyes, ears and everything. I pray that you will help us to understand, give us the spirit of wisdom when it comes to this very complex and yet so easy, so easy thing, you know showing love and showing compassion in every area of our lives, whether it's as parents or caregivers, or teachers, as you know, assistants, as coaches, as doctors, as leaders, as analysts, as whatever it is that we are project managers, whatever it is that we're. We've been called to do the role that we feel, that you, today, will speak to us about love and compassion, amen, all right, this is why I says this is a, this is a, this is a choice.
Speaker 1:
So I'm going to share my screen, I'm going to share the word we're going to be in Luke 10. This is a very familiar. I get it. I know y'all know this, but this is a very familiar scripture, but I think it's really important. This is Luke 10 and I'm looking at verses, verses 25, and I'm going to pause at 29,. But I'm going to show you what it is and the reason we're going to pause, because there is a, there's a question in here I want us to really think about. So we're, we're, we're. We're looking at this from our heart posture.
Speaker 1:
I talk about heart posture all the time, because that is the way that that the Lord taught me how to teach others is from the position of his heart, is what's on his heart, amen. So we're going to start off in verse 25. It says and behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test. Meaning, a lawyer, an educated person, stood up to put Jesus to the test. Okay, some of us who are very knowledgeable, right, you know, we try to put God to the test. And and he says saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? It's almost transactional, right. What? What shall I do? What shall I do? And he said to him, in verse 26, what is written in the law? And how do you read it? And and he answered. The man answered and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to break this down for you, to show you that there are multiple components here. First, it's loving the Lord, your God, with all your heart. And why is it? It's because, again, we know that it's from our heart. Our heart feeds our thoughts. Our thoughts become our words, our words become our actions and how we live our life. Things are seated, things that are special, things that are closer to you. We were saying in Jamaica oh, you're taking it to heart, meaning you're taking really great offense, like it is in your being, because you're taking it to heart. But the first part is loving the Lord, your God, with all your heart.
Speaker 1:
A lot of people love God with their intellect, with their mind and, you know, can I tell you, a couple of days ago he was even showing me that, like we've made even the relationship and the way we worship so convenient to us, it's been more about how convenient it is to us. I don't have time, you know, I don't have time to pray, I don't have time to worship, so I'll just grab a app and I'll just grab a devotional and see what, see what's out there for me, instead of taking that time, setting that time apart. Loving God with your whole heart means you want to set time aside so that you can just do worship, right? In the same way, we love our children with our whole heart. We're going to set time aside so that we spend quality time with our kids, right? So, loving the Lord, our God, with all our heart, with all our soul. So now, our intentions, our minds, our you know our thoughts, our will, right? So, loving God with all your soul, it's your mind, it's you know we talk about the mind of Christ.
Speaker 1:
When you're approaching a problem, what's your response to? When you're approaching people, what's your intention and your will. You know, anytime I enter into any situation, I'm talking like, because I'm talking to people who you know are especially on the LinkedIn streets when you're at work. You know, before I go into a meeting, I'm asking the Lord to bless me and open my eyes. And you know, help me, lord. If I'm dealing with a very tough colleague, I'll ask him even help me to show compassion because I don't know what's going on with this other person.
Speaker 1:
Right, so, loving with my whole my soul, with all my strength, with all my strength, that's another one, right? So we talk about being strong, being in resolve. You know it is, it's being. I ask the Lord, like, give me the strength, like, give me the mental strength, sometimes, right, just to you know. You know, help me. You know, help me build up a backbone. Right, you're so loving him with all my strength, with all my energy, with all my force. Right, and then with all my mind, that's another one, you know, again, because our thoughts feed and sometimes, again, if we're having all these nasty, negative thoughts, that's coming into your mind. Do you love with your mind? You know, before I, before I speak to someone, am I already judging them? That's coming from my thoughts and my preconceived notion.
Speaker 1:
Right, and watch this last part. And your neighbor as yourself. Now, here is where it's going to be a little problematic, because if you don't love yourself, it's impossible for you to love someone else. If you don't love yourself, it's impossible for you to love someone else. You will always, you will always be judging, you'll always be looking at some of your perceptions that are always going to be muddled. It's always going to be a foreshadow, a projection, if you will. If you're not confident, therefore, you're going to look at someone who is confident and you're going to find a way to challenge that person jealousy, envy, right, gossip, right. So what you can see here, that's even important that you're loving your neighbor, but it says as yourself. So how do you love yourself? Is understanding the value and the way God sees you, not the way the world sees you.
Speaker 1:
I am not big on titles. When it comes to titles, I mean titles on the job, titles in ministry, but also titles that we start to pick up in society. I call them tags and titles, where everybody starts to jump on a van wagon and they have a title or condition tied to their name. So now you don't even know how to address someone because there's title and conditions that come with their names. Me I say, hey, what is your name? What do you want me to call you? And that's the name I go by, right, and it's tied back to the value and how you see yourself, right, and if you love yourself, then it's easier for you to love your neighbor because you're not so focused on all the negatives and the things that that person did and all that stuff. Right. And when it talks about loving your neighbor as yourself, it means even the same way that you would meet your own conditions, you want to meet it for somebody else.
Speaker 1:
Something we do in our prayer or prayers in the Kamazah wilderness prayer ministry is we pray for other people. So especially on Tuesday night, monday mornings that's where we're getting ourselves ready for the week and Tuesday, tuesday night, we pray over families, we pray over specific people and you know these aren't prayer requests. These are people who we just, you know the Lord shows them to me and we pray over them as we would pray for ourselves, and this is an alignment with being a good Samaritan. If you will, it's, it's the it's, it's following his instruction. Amen, thank you for that, lord, that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Verse 28 says. And he said to him you answered correctly do this and you will live and live here. What he showed me is not just living as an extended life, but live. Live a prosperous life, live a full life, live a life of joy, a life filled with blessing. You will. You will live happiness, right, it comes from that, come from love.
Speaker 1:
Now, verse 29 says, but he desiring to justify himself. Now here, here's again the lawyer, the educated person, right, the one, again, the one who assumes he knows everything. A lot of us, right, we know more than the Lord. Right, we've been at church and you can't tell me nothing. And yet he was. He was being challenged. So he wanted to challenge because he wanted to justify.
Speaker 1:
The reason he wanted to justify himself is because he wasn't doing any of these things. He wasn't loving the Lord with all his heart, his soul, his strength, his mind, and he surely wasn't loving his neighbor as his self. Because he started out by asking what shall I do to inherit? What's the price I need to pay? Is there a check I need to write so I can get this thing called eternal life right? And the Lord responds and asked and he said I'm sorry, he said to Jesus who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor?
Speaker 1:
The word says you know, loving your neighbor as yourself. And the question he asked is who is my neighbor? I'm gonna stop sharing and just come talk to y'all. That is a profound question. That is a profound question that a lot of us have to answer to who is my neighbor? The word says love your neighbor as yourself. And the question is who is my neighbor? And I genuinely believe that if we start to look at your neighbor as people who don't not just the people who look like you, not just the people who live in your physical neighborhood, not just the people who you go to church with. If you look at your neighbor as someone on who you're working with your colleagues, if you're looking at your neighbor as you know again people you might run into it, you know in your community, at the store.
Speaker 1:
If you start to expand who is my neighbor as literally everyone who you come in contact with, your heart posture changes because you, you start to realize that showing love and compassion isn't just about you feeling good and you being kind to the people that maybe you're. You know your intimate family, or maybe you're showing love to you know, you know your, your spouse or your mate right, but who is your neighbor? Goes much farther than that. So that's why I started out by saying this is a question you have to answer for yourself. This is, this is a will question. This is a matter of the heart, but this is something that you have to decide for yourself. This isn't something that, you know, god can force you to do.
Speaker 1:
I love because he loved me first. I love him because he loved me first. I love the Lord because he sacrificed himself for me, because I do believe in the, in the gospel of salvation, because I've been so blessed. I love the Lord because he loved me first. Right, and as I'm carrying out this walk, then what do I do with all the love he gives me? All that love that I have? I have to give it back to somebody else. That's, that's the nature of my being. I'm speaking for myself. Maybe that's you as well.
Speaker 1:
But showing love and compassion goes beyond being, you know, being the person who's just dismissive, it goes against the person that's so judgmental, the ones that are gossiping. Look, all of us are going to vent at some point, right, there are days when I'm like you know, in my career, I just want to scream because there's so much craziness happening, right. But I don't turn to hate, I don't turn to judgment, I turn to compassion when I know that there's someone who is truly suffering. I don't need to know your business to know that you're suffering. And so how do I respond to someone who I'm working with who's going really going through some things? It doesn't give an excuse. You know, when people are treating you poorly, please don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying if someone is being abusive to you, you just sit there and take it. When someone's being abusive to me, I'm in Psalm 35, and the Lord going to take care of it, if you know. You know OK, because I'm not fighting these battles on my own.
Speaker 1:
And even then we're instructed to love one another, and some of us have to love people where they are right. You know, I was having a conversation yesterday where a woman was sharing just a situation that's going on with someone who's dealing with alcohol addiction and she was asking you know, what do we do as a community to help that person? And my response is it is not judgment. It is not judgment. So how do you provide resources? Through love? It's how do you approach that situation through love and not judgment. It's having compassion also for the family that's attached to this person and that is the hard posture that you take. And then, obviously, you pray through it and you know, physically, you write, physically, meaning you've got to do something to help those people, help them find a resource. But that's coming from a position of love and compassion and not love and judgment. Right, because, again, a lot of Christians, right, you know, we say we love one another, but we're the first to judge, we're the first to condemn, we're the first to curse Amen. So what are you going to do? This is a choice.
Speaker 1:
Today, as you're going through all of your meetings or your events, or you're dealing with the kids, you know I pray that this is going to rest on your heart. Am I showing compassion today? Am I showing love today? Lord, give me the strength. You know some of us got to ask for that. I do. I literally have to ask Lord, give me strength, lord, god, to show love in this situation, or maybe he needs to zip your mouth and you say nothing at all. Sometimes the best response is zero response. While you're processing how to love and show compassion. You don't always have to say something, but it does show up in how you respond. So, father, I thank you for this lesson. I thank you for reminding us the story of the Good Samaritan, but I thank you for calling out that question. Who is my neighbor?
Speaker 1:
And, as we're going into our different areas today, whether it's in business or maybe we're stay-at-home moms or teachers or coaches, wherever it is that you've sent us in the marketplace today, even for those who are at home and they're not, they don't have a job and they're looking, even the ones who feel like they're suffering, the ones who are having health crisis and financial crisis all of us, or God, we're going through a lot. This is a season of blessings for many, but this is also a season of lack for some, and so I pray over every single person who are just looking out for your love, lord, and for your compassion, and that you'll give us mercy and that you'll provide, as the word says, you provide all of our needs. So I'm receiving and believing now that you're releasing every single need that is gonna be met today, that there's a phone call, that the persons who are waiting for the job they're gonna get that call today, that the answer that that job offers coming today. Lord God, and I ask that, as they are receiving these blessings, that they do not forget love and compassion. In the same way that you show it to us through your mercy. I pray that you will irritate us, irritate our very spirits today, and remind us to show that to the people around us. It is a choice and so, abba, I thank you so much. I thank you for loving me, I thank you for showing compassion to me so that I can return it in full to your people as you send me in Jesus' name. Amen, amen, isn't that amazing? It is a choice. Y'all love and compassion, and I pray that this is gonna rest. This is gonna bother you today. I pray that it's gonna bother your spirit. I pray that you don't forget what I said and then you go back in the word, right, amen?
Speaker 1:
Y'all have a wonderful rest of the week. I will be back on Thursday If you wanna find us, if you wanna join a prayer group where it's called Come Out of the Wilderness Prayer Ministry. You can find us on Facebook streets. Like I said, we have lots of events and prayers. You can go to graceandgretmediacom. We have a lot of free events that you can join by Zoom this virtual come out, and that's another way that you can show support, but another way that you can fellowship with men and women like me who are just coming together to pray and just be blessed. So y'all have a wonderful rest of your Thursday. Let this be the day that blessings reign on you. Amen. All right, thank you so much for watching. Take care Bye.