Reaching out on February the 14th

Yesterday, Carolyn McCulley posted a link to a thought provoking article of hers regarding why singles need to change their focus on February 14th from self-centeredness and self-pity to ministry (serving the poor and needy). She writes mainly for a female audience, but this article along with much of her other posts are very far-reaching and of interest to both genders.

Here are a couple of quotes worth thinking about:

"To encounter loneliness through the eyes of faith is to see opportunities to minister love. Grace translates singleness into outreach. There are plenty of people on Valentine’s Day or other holidays, parties or weddings – single and married – who need someone to carry God’s love to them. With this perspective, let’s resolve when we next feel lonely or awkward, to use those emotions to remind us that others nearby may be feeling the same way."

"There are three spiritual benefits to serving the poor and needy around us: 1) it glorifies God and blesses others, 2) it builds our local churches, and 3) it’s a great antidote to self-pity."

Love

I Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.


Scripture quotation from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.