Greater love has no one than this.

Love is a brilliant feeling, but one that matures into a steadfast devotion. It is a verb, carrying with it the promises of great joy and great sorrow. We indeed love ourselves, for we cannot help but experience our own joy and sorrow, and live with our successes and failures. However, others can choose not to, no matter how close in proximity we live to them. There can be no love in a family, in spite of the proximity of its members. By this, we know that love is a choice, a decision that may require frequent revisiting, not to change the decision, but to affirm and strengthen the underlying conviction.

What conviction could we need for love? Love only makes sense in context of a greater love, and what greater love on earth is there than God's for each person? There is little purpose to love in the self-sacrificial sense, particularly with regard to the Christian way, unless there is a Higher Power to whom we subscribe our devotion. God Himself is this Higher Power, and more than merely demanding our devotion, He has demonstrated His great love through His greatest gift - Jesus Christ. Love, in its purest and truest form, desires not to increase the lover's standing, but to increase the beloved's standing. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, deserving of all glory as part of the Triune Godhead, did not choose to come to be glorified, instead to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. Therefore, in light of His sacrifice upon the cross, Christians (or "little Christs") pursue our God's most excellent demonstration of true, pure love.

Such love is divine, because its founding was in God, not man. Such love is worth demonstrating in our lives, should we confess that Christ is Savior and Lord. Therefore, with all grace abounding and mercy outpouring from God, let us reflect this awesome glory of our God!

Mornings.

Bubbles of consciousness breach the stagnant surface of my mind. A new day is quickly arriving for me. Before my eyelids peel back, and reveal the light, I can already hear the buzz of activity all around me. Some days start slower than others, and such mornings seem like the worst to start anything important. At that juncture in time, it seems like the mood for the day has been set. The day's work seems daunting, even crushing at times. It seems never-ending, and what's worst, it is nothing new under the sun for me. If only it was something new, I reason, I will show much enthusiasm in approaching it. If only I didn't have to deal with the minor issues, it will be so much more fulfilling.

Then, sometimes I remember that the start doesn't matter as much as how I finish, or I recall how the Lord enables me to "bend a bow of bronze". It doesn't seem so bad after all, since all these labors are good for sharpening my mettle. I am sure of why and how I must approach the matters at hand.

Most days, I do not remember, and am found in frustration. I forget that I am not a mere servant, but a friend of God. Friends do not do things out of compulsion, but out of love. Thus, I am placing a stone of reminder for this frail mind of mine - so that it may not fail the first test of faithfulness in the morning. This is the tension within, the first battle of the day - whether to hear the sounds of buzzing activity without, or to focus on the Holy Spirit's guiding whispers within.