April 1, 2025
A compilation
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What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.—Saint Augustine
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[Joni Eareckson Tada, who is a quadriplegic and was also suffering cancer when this was written, said:] It’s quite wonderful—when you’re going through the worst of it and it’s just a nightmare—to have someone standing by you. The other night I was in such pain, and I prayed right before I went to bed, “Oh, Lord Jesus, would You please show up tonight? Let me see You and feel You. Let me know You’re with me. You’ve promised that You will never leave or forsake me. Let me sense that tonight.”
Well, sure enough, I had to wake Ken up to help me, and as he was standing there in the dim light of the bedside lamp, I said, “You’re Him! You’re Jesus! Ken, I feel Him in your touch, I see Him in your face, in your smile. [I hear Him] in the tone of your voice.” It was the sweetest thing to feel the presence of Jesus through my husband.—Joni Eareckson Tada
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John 3:16 tells us what it means to love like Jesus loves: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” Godly love gives sacrificially. Loving like Jesus means we hold everything we own with loose hands. We are willing to part with money, time, and possessions in order to serve other people. … When we see a brother or sister in need, and we have resources that could help, we are to share what we have with them (James 2:15; 1 John 3:16–17).
Jesus was undiscriminating in the way He loved. He warned us that it is easy to love those who are like us (Luke 6:32–33). But Jesus loved even His enemies and expects His followers to do the same (Luke 6:35). … We are to treat every human being with dignity and respect, remembering that this person is a special creation, designed in the image of God (1 John 2:9–10; 4:20–21). …
Loving like Jesus means we care enough about the souls of others to tell them the truth. … We do not love people by watering down the gospel that could save them. … Forgiveness is another way we can love like Jesus. … Jesus told His disciples that the primary way the world would know they were His was by their love for one another (John 13:35). If we love Jesus, then we will love what He loves, which is people. And as we practice loving like He loved, we become more like Him.—GotQuestions.org1
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A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him for dead.
Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite [temple assistant], when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan [a people despised and shunned by the Jews of those days], as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.”
So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?—Jesus, Luke 10:30–36
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With the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus taught that our neighbor is anyone who needs our help, regardless of race, creed, color, nationality, condition, or location. If we have love, we can’t just pass by someone in need; we’ll take action, like the Samaritan did. That’s the difference between pity and compassion. Pity just feels sorry; compassion does something about it. The compassionate put feet to their prayers and kind deeds to their kind words. Love is making a connection between God and somebody who needs His love, and we do that by showing others His real love and manifesting it by genuine proving action. “The love of Christ compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).—D. B. Berg
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His name is Bill. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it, jeans, and no shoes. This was literally his wardrobe for his entire four years of college. He is brilliant, kind of esoteric and very, very bright. He became a Christian while attending college.
Across the street from the campus is a well-dressed, very conservative church. They want to develop a ministry to the students, but are not sure how to go about it.
One day Bill decides to go there. He walks in with no shoes, jeans, his T-shirt, and wild hair. … The service has already started, and so Bill starts down the aisle looking for a seat. The church is completely packed, and he can’t find a seat.
By now, people are really looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one says anything. Bill gets closer and closer and closer to the pulpit, and when he realizes there are no seats, he just squats down right on the carpet. (Although perfectly acceptable behavior at a college fellowship, trust me, this had never happened in this church before!) Now the people are really uptight, and the tension in the air is thick.
About this time, the minister realizes that from way at the back of the church, a deacon is slowly making his way toward Bill. The deacon is in his eighties, and has silver-gray hair, and wears a three-piece suit. He is a godly man, very elegant, very dignified, and very courtly.
He walks with a cane, and as he begins to move toward this boy, everyone is pondering that you can’t fault him for what he’s about to do. How can you anticipate a man of his age and his upbringing to comprehend some college kid on the floor? It takes quite a while for the man to approach the boy. The church is utterly silent except for the clicking of the man’s cane. All eyes are focused on him. You can’t even hear anyone breathing. The minister can’t preach the sermon until the deacon does what he has to do.
And now they see this elderly man drop his cane on the floor. With great difficulty, he lowers himself and sits down next to Bill and worships with him so he won’t be alone. Everyone chokes up with emotion. When the minister regains composure, he says, “What I’m about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget.”—Rebecca Manley Pippert, retold by Alice Gray2
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Be careful how you live. You may be the only “Bible” some people will ever read.—Author unknown
Published on Anchor April 2025. Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso. Music by Michael Fogarty.
1 “What does it mean to love like Jesus?” GotQuestions, January 4, 2022, https://www.gotquestions.org/love-like-Jesus.html
2 Alice Gray, “A Guy Named Bill,” in More Stories for the Heart (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1997), 32–33, https://bible.org/illustration/guy-named-bill
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