Dear Christian educators,
This is our high calling, dear friends. We need to be known for our love on our school campuses. We love because He loved us first. Don't worry if you haven't loved the way you should. None of us have, but we serve the God of Love, Who will enable us to love more deeply as we cry out to Him. During Lent, let's pray for more love, particularly for the unlovables. You know who they are! Can you imagine if we started loving on them instead of being annoyed by them? It would change everything! May God give you His power to do just that.
Each day during this season of Lent, I will post one verse and pray it with you. Consider saying the verse in your quiet time and praying it also. You may use the same prayer or try your own. Each day until Easter (except Sundays) there will be a new post that contains: a verse, a small reflection, a prayer using the Scripture and an image. Feel free to share the images because I made them with the Bible Lens app and took all the pictures. What a creative God we serve!
Day 3
John 15:12-17 English Standard Version (ESV)
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
What does loving the unlovable look like? Whenever that student begins to show his/her ways, deal with them in private. Bring them in the hall for a moment (while you still have your eye on the others, of course). Make the attempt to let them know you are not his/her enemy and in fact are their advocate. Try a phone call home with good news. They may have never received one before. Being proactive with an unlovable, may mean a smile before class, an unrelated inquiry to their day having nothing to do with school. It may even be a small sincere note to just them. It's hard to do, but if you ask God for creative ways to love them, there is no doubt you will get help. After all it says, "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." That's when we know we are praying in His will.
Dear Lord,
Why is loving others hard? It shouldn't be. It should come naturally, yet sometimes people just know how to push our buttons. Will you help us Lord to come up with creative ways to love those who seem unlovable? We know that You love them. Please shine the light on what You see and how we can be more observant. Help us to practice looking as them as fearfully and wonderfully made. Lord, please grant us Your ways that we may be pleasing in Your sight and a blessing to all - yes, even the unlovables. Lord, Your commandment is to love one another as You have loved us. You even call us friends if we love like You do. That's incredible. Thank You for choosing us and help us to bear fruit that Your fruit may abide on our campuses. We ask because You said whatever you ask in My Father's Name, He will give it to us. Help us to love one another!
Prayerfully yours,
K
Karen C. Seddon
CEAI - Christian Educators Assoc. Int.
State Director for Florida
407.892.5651
....an unqualified recipient of His unconditional love
2 Timothy 3:16 -17- All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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