Love is a Care-Taker From a Christian Perspective

By DALVIN PRYCE

Love is a Care -- Taker

Love is a care -- Taker, author DALVIN PRYCE offers illuminating and straightforward talk to help guide people through today's biggest challenges of loving people well. Our life should be marked by loving well, by this, all men should know that we are Christ's disciples when we have love for one another. Being hospitable and walking in his grace, we should be known for loving well. Let's put love into practice! Here's a great example, a woman was left alone with her two children after the death of her husband. She was evicted from her home because of her insurmountable debt.

Shortly after the property was auctioned off, she attended the auction to see who would end up owning the property, when the auction was closed, the woman burst into tears at her loss, however, as she turned in the keys the buyer gave them back to her, she said to her, I was an orphaned child and I come from a humble family. She says God has given me the means and I want to give back some of the many things God has given me; she told this crying woman; you owed me nothing; the house is yours." the woman was great full for the rest of her life for this loving action. That's a testimony of loving well, isn't it? God wants us to be out among the people of the cities being used by him. The Lord wants us to be hospitable, in other words, we must shine with the love of Christ even if we are struggling, Jesus wants us to have a welcoming hospitable heart. Jesus lives for others. He prayed for them, He identified with the need of people, their needs and suffering were His own. If Jesus has given us so much, why not give back to Him some of what we have? Let's do something for those in need even if it means depriving ourselves of somethings -------- Life without love makes no sense.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887930930

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Love is a Care-Taker From a Christian Perspective

DALVIN PRYCE

Copyright © 2023 DALVIN PRYCE

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88793-090-9 (hc)

ISBN 979-8-88793-093-0 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Love Is a Caretaker

Introduction

Love Is a Caretaker

Misrepresenting Jesus

Ananias and Sapphire

Judas and His Wicked Agreement!

Who Is My Disciples?

Fatal Distraction

Multiplying the Widow's Oil

Domestic Violence in the Church

Please Excuse Me!

Do You Want to Be Made Well?

The Mission of Christ

You Must Be Born Again!

God Only Saves Bad People!

Transformed by the World Culture!

Jesus Told the Prodigal Story!

How Should a Christian Dress!

O Lord, Revive Thy Works!

Jesus Sets a Pattern for Prayer

No Complain

Why So Much Crime in America

The Body of Christ!

The Mind of an Evangelist!

Definition of a Family!

Love Is a Caretaker!

Definition of a Family!

Love Is a Caretaker!

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Many people have helped immensely in the preparation of this book. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for their help and support. I would like to thank my editor, who has read my writing with a critical eye and from whom I've learned much in getting this book to print.

I am extremely grateful to Alex Urueta of Page Publishing, who was willing to take a chance on an unknown author. Am also grateful to Eliana Rodriquez (publication coordination), who helped me on my journey of getting this book published. It is impossible to express with words my gratitude and appreciation to my wife, Patricia, who encouraged and helped me through the long ordeal. Above all, I give thanks to almighty God. He's my inspiration and the ultimate Creator of everything.

The word love is mentioned more than forty times in the short epistle of John; he summed up all of his teachings on this very important topic in 1 John 4:19 We love, because He first loved us. The subject of love can be very complicated at times, but make no mistake, love is more than enthusiasm! I believe a key test of our commitment to Christ is our love for one another. It is not just our words that express our love, but our attitudes and actions as well. Let's remember Jesus did not say that others would know we are His disciples by what we say, or how we dress, or what we know, or even the label of our denomination. He simply said, love one another as I have loved you, and remember He's the one who lay down His life for all of us.

The Apostle Paul, in his last words, said And now abide faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 in other words without love there is no fulfillment in faith. Without love hope is joyless, without love ambitions are hazardous. Without love, justice is dangerous. Without love, suffering is unbearable. I notice that love for many of us is a way of becoming a part of someone's life that is wonderful; but love is not always a response to something or someone wonderful, it is not always an attraction which is sweet, nor is it something we bestow only on those in our circle of friends. Sometimes we express sentiments of emotions on greeting cards, and we believe we have demonstrated love, but no that is not love, so what then is love.

Love Is a Caretaker

What kind of love is this? To put it in a nutshell, love is the impact of God upon the human life. John told us, We love because He first loved us. We need to experience a love that has nothing to do with our being wonderful, or someone being wonderful, but everything to do with you being human. We need to love in a way that asks nothing in return. Sometimes love is not easy, but remember, God is the one that started it, so we must always get help from him. The love of Jesus is unique; it transcends human love; it is a divine love on the highest holiest levels. Self-centered love cries out, I love you because I want you. Self-serving love calls out, I love you because I need you. But self-giving love reaches out, I love you because you need me. And that's the love that Jesus Christ inspires. Love has to be given, or it ceases to exist.

The scripture states that John has been called the Apostle of Love. The apostle John certainly offered plenty of evidence to show why. John says to love God, we must be born of God, and the evidence to show we are born of God is that we love him and keep his commandment. But what does John mean by love? People say they love all kinds of things these days. One minute they love peanut butter, and the next, they love their spouse. Likewise, they love their pets, their food, sports, cars, and vacation—whatever! Thankfully, the scripture defines love for us by describing God's love using both nouns and verbs.

As I examine various scriptures, I find that God's love is lasting. Psalm 136 tells us that his mercy endures forever. Romans 8:28 tells us, all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, to those who are called according to his purpose. Then Luke 6:27 tells us that God's love is reconciling and healing. In verse 27, he counsels, But I say unto you who hear; love your enemies, do well to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. God's love is effective! And God effectiveness involve not just emotions or words but deed that benefited you and me today.

Introduction

In 1 John 3:18, the apostle says, My little children, let us not love in words neither in tongue, but indeed and truth! God is an accepting God. He is not a condemning God. He is a generous God. Romans 5:8 tell us, But God commended His love toward us while we were yet sinners. I believe that perhaps the best summary of true godly love is 1 Corinthians 13. I call it the Love Chapter. Here, Paul described the love of God as it should be among all believers in Christ: Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels, but have not love, I've become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. I believe the ultimate expression of God's love to us is Christ, who offered up himself for the sins of the world! No wonder the well-known text John 3:16 says, For God so love the world that He gave is only begotten Son, that whosoever believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The question today is this! In what ways does your love need to develop? Have you grasp the dimension of God's love for you? Have you grasp the dimension of lasting love, sacrificial love, reconciling love, effective love, deeds that benefit people, fearless love, discerning love, the love of accepting one another, and the love of generosity? Can you begin today to cultivate Christlike love and make it more tangible in your life, in your work, and in your relationship?

Again, coating the apostle Paul, he says, And now abide faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. Positive spiritual passion is the power source of human values that transform people from selfish, greedy, arrogant, and duplicitous creatures into beautiful human beings who are unselfish, generous, caring, and compassionate. As you read through this book, choose your values carefully, seek out and accept those values that will bless and shape you into a more beautiful human being.

Love Is a Caretaker

A lawyer once asked Jesus a question, testing him, he asked, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with your entire mind.' This is the first commandment, and the second is ‘Like unto it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hangs all the laws and the prophets. So not only are we called to love God and ourselves, but we are also called to love our neighbors.

This is perhaps the hardest of the three commands. There are many good reasons why Jesus told us to love one another as he loves us. First, Jesus emphasized this is how the world will know that we are Christians. He also saw what most of us have difficulty seeing: We are clumsy, unintentionally unkind, confused, and most of us have never learned how to love. In other words, we've not learn how to take care of one another, yet most of us will say that there is nothing about love I don't know. Many of us think of love as a feeling, but it isn't. Love is a way of life—a good way of life, but not always an easy one.

Life plus love!

Love is not a compromiser; if God had met us halfway, there would still be a vast amount of distance between him and us. Because we never could have made it halfway to him; we were too weakened by our loss of love, and so he had to go all the way for us. Because we needed to be loved and he was love; therefore, he closed the distance between us by throwing his own self into the breach. He gave all and asked nothing in return. Love has atrocious manners. It will not tell us what we want to hear. It will tell us what is true, what is right and good.

All the law is fulfilled in one sentence: love your neighbor as yourself. We've all been told these days that we can have everything—everything, perhaps, except love, because for some of us, love takes too much out of us. Oftentimes, love is born out of someone's need to be loved, and if we turned away from that need, then we might never experience what love really is because love has to be given or it ceases to exist. Love is not a response to someone or something wonderful; that's what I call attraction—it's sweet while it last. Love is neither something we bestow on those we favor. Love is part of ourselves that we yield, reluctantly, sometimes, to those who demand it from us by their needs. Love is a thoughtful, deliberate, frequently uneven exchange of appreciation and sometimes of caring intimacies that makes us realize how much life is to be cherished.

Do you have this kind of love? A love that puts others ahead of yourself? This is the kind of love Jesus had for us, and without Christ in your heart, you cannot produce this love. That's why he left the glory of heaven and went to the cross for our salvation. Only God can give us a selfless love for others; as the Holy Spirit permeates our hearts, we are changed from within. This is one reason we must receive Christ, for apart from God's spirit, we can never be freed from the chains of selfishness, jealousy, and indifference.

If our hearts are not conditioned by the Holy Spirit to receive and reflect the warmth of God's compassion, we cannot love others as we ought to love them.

Jesus wept tears of compassion at the grave side of his friend Lazarus. He mourned over Jerusalem because the people lost their sensitivity to the word. His heart was always sensitive to the needs of others, and so when he was challenged by this young lawyer to state the most important commandment, he told him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and secondly your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37–39). Jesus, through his compassion for people, expresses the fullest sense of divine love, and this is the kind of love he calls us to have toward others.

The kind of love he will give to us in return as we seek him. Christ ignored hunger but paid great attention to the need of the woman at the well. To be frank, love is not a service we performed for someone important to us—running errands and doing laundry. It does not pick up after love ones; love do not bite its lips to keep from crying because their efforts are not appreciated or even noticed. Love is none of these things; we only thought it was because we never take a good look at love. Love is an exchange of creative power; it is passed onto one another; it helps us to get from where we are to where God's wants us to be.

Love is a caretaker!

I do agree with many of the expert on the subject of love; love may begin spontaneously, but love doesn't grow spontaneously. Love has to be learned, and the only qualified teacher we have is God. He is the author of love. He has already been where we are and where we have to go. For some of us, it may take a lifetime to become educated. Jesus said, This is my commandment that you love one another as I've love you (John 15:12). Being loved by God changes us. We may look the same; we may have the same smile as we have before, only now, God put loveliness in our hearts, and what really changed is the ability to do things we never were able to do before. We make better use of what we have and who we are. To put it in a nutshell, we discover how to give ourselves without losing ourselves.

When God's love reaches the heart and changes the heart, you don't have to pretend. God's love in your heart provides what you need to be a loving person. We all know someone who spends their time searching for love, even though they are surrounded by love. They may not be difficult or crazy, they just cannot recognize love when they see it because they wanted it to be something else, like admiration or attraction. People always ask, Do you love me? But Jesus asks, Will you allow me to love you? We say, I love you because you are wonderful, but Jesus says, My loving you is wonderful. I know that some individual cannot handle love.

They are uncomfortable with affection. Sometimes, people are so scared emotionally that they are afraid to be loved. They fear you will expect them to love in return, and they are incapable of doing that because of damaged emotions. But genuine agape love doesn't expect love in return.

Have you ever wondered how Jesus could go on loving his disciple after that night in Gethsemane? He had asked so little of them, and they couldn't give it to him. Come and sit with me awhile, he asked, and they couldn't stay awake. I am going to die, and I don't want to wait alone, he explained. But they nodded drowsily and fell asleep again. What are friends for? I mean, if ever we need someone close to us, someone to stand by our side, then this is it. You would think if they really loved him, this was the time to show it. But that moment never came. You ask, How could we possibly go on loving someone who let us down so cruelly? Jesus did, and he is our example.

The Bible recorded that wherever Jesus went, he drew a crowd, yet many people stayed away from him, and even among those who once walk with him, many of them turned back. I am tempted to ask, Why? but perhaps if you and I were there, we too might have been one of those who said, Thanks, but no thanks. Because as wonderful as it is to be loved by God, that is not the end of the experience. What comes next is to give what we have been given, and that is the hard part—one of the most important parts of who we are is to love our fellow human. Loving is the most important part of who we are. It enables us to give our real selves, and as we give love, kindness, and loving service, we discover who we are.

Love has made me a caretaker!

It has taken my caring far beyond my immediate surroundings; love has made me my brother's keeper and the keeper of those my brother cannot keep. There is very little need if any, in this world, for someone who has no obligations to anyone else, no responsibility for the well-being of another, and no demands on your time other than your own choice of what you want to do with the rest of your life.

If this is the way we are going out into the world, then we are not properly qualified to work in it because anything that needs to be done will require the ability to give of ourselves, to put something or someone ahead of us, and to put someone in our focus. We have to juggle with what we want out of life and what we must put in it.

There came a time in my own life when it became clear to me that my own talent had meaning when I used it for the benefit of others. My talent in inspiring and garnering support for a worthy cause, and helping others to succeed gave a meaning to my life far greater than I could ever imagined. Whatever your talent is, it will find its intended purpose and its only true fulfillment when it is used well for the good of others. As we begin to experience the satisfaction that comes from giving to another, to someone else needs out of the fulfillment of your own, then maybe you will begin to know the real meaning of comfort. All of us have unique personalities, talents, and opportunities, and the Bible teaches that the spirit of God bestows gifts and talents on his people. The apostle Paul specified in 1Corinthians 12:7 that these gift and talents are given for the common good of the body of Christ, and he admonished Christians to put their gifts to use and not allowed them to lie dormant.

The message is clear: God endowed all of us with gifts and talents that we are to claim, develop, and put to use for the benefit of the larger community. The happiest days of my own life have been those in which I have used my talents and my abilities to help others help themselves. It will be the same for you; think of the combined impact of your commitment to a worthy cause; the application of your talent, your knowledge and skills to that purpose, your generosity toward others is beyond measuring. In this process, we find a deep fulfillment and confidence that will enable you to go beyond where you were and do better than you've ever done. In fact, each time you share a talent, you increase your understanding of the positive potential your talent possesses.

For example, if your talent is musical, the more you make music, the more you will bring increasing benefit and enjoyment to others. If your talent is helping others in crucial or difficult times, each act of compassionate counsel will make you an even more effective helper. If your talent is generosity, the more you share with others, the more you teach others to share the greater the impact of your life. Whatever your talent is, invest in it with which it will have the greatest benefit.

We human beings are not evenly divided between those who can look after themselves and those who cannot. There are many among us whose situations do not fluctuate as much as others; some of us come into this world with certain advantages, power, wealth, educational enlightenment, and determination; we have the upper hand to those who are born to poverty, born to dependence, ignorance, and hopelessness. I would like to think that some of us are lovable people doing harm to other lovable people. We are kind of a unique blend of weaknesses and strengths.

Some of us wound others, and some of us who are wounded cannot help ourselves because we are handicapped by our lack of advantages. Some people told me love is a tangle of opportunities and denials. In the midst of all this, I wonder where does love fits into this picture? Jesus taught his disciples in the beatitudes, Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). The meekness or the love of the strong should impel those who are weak.

The hand of love is strong and can attain what God so cherishes. Philippians