“Little children, let us stop saying we love people; let us really love them, and show it by our actions.” (1 John 3:18 LB)

The heart is the control center of all actions. How you act reflects what your heart trusts.  “You can live opposite of what you profess, but you cannot live opposite of what you believe.”

Eventually what you believe will show up in your actions. If you believe God loves you, then you’ll begin to love others. If you believe God forgives you, then you’ll begin to forgive others. Your experience of God results in an overflow of his life into the lives of others.

As we allow the Holy Spirit to continually fill us, we become a spring of his love and life to all around us. John would say we have “rivers of living water flowing out of us.” We become a conduit for the life of Jesus.

The life of Jesus is a practical life. The disciples were expected to live out what they heard Jesus say. Jesus told his disciples they would be known by the way they treated others.

He gets specific in Matthew 25:35-36:

· You gave food to the hungry,

· You gave drink to the thirsty,

· You invited a stranger into your home,

· You gave clothes to the naked,

· You cared for the sick,

· You visited the prisoners,

And this isn’t an exhaustive list on the ways to offer practical help. Jesus constantly provides us with down-to-earth examples meant to get us started.