Loving People

Loving People

In Crisis or Addiction

Our love and service to others:

Love

Encourage

Support

Pray

We don't carry their burden (it's not for them or you to carry, it is God's to carry). Our love, encouragement, support, and prayer are not meant to hinder what God is doing. We can't 'step in' because we're afraid they are going to hit rock bottom. Our love and service to them is meant to encourage them and hold them up in prayer.

We cannot support their bad habits, addictions, decisions, attitudes, and etc. We speak truth in love while we love, encourage, support, and pray for them. We point them to Jesus, to the Bible, and to love.

We listen. We stop repetitious cycles of living in the past. When they are stuck repeating the same horrible stories of what they have gone through, help them move from telling stories of death and destruction to stories of life. This means to help them begin claiming God's promises over their own lives, repeating the blessings that God has poured over them, and speaking love and encouragement over themselves and others.

Encourage them to love others in their process of healing. When they begin to pour love into others, Jesus will pour more love into them. This allows them to be a funnel of God's love. While this love is pouring through them, it is also healing them from the inside out.

Scripture

Hebrews 10:24-25 encourages Christians to "consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

This verse speaks to the importance of love, encouragement, and community, while also hinting at the need to support one another as we await Christ's return. The verse also implies a need to pray as we consider these actions.

Unpacking this passage:

• Love (and Good Deeds):

  The passage emphasizes the importance of fostering love and performing good deeds within the Christian community and with those Jesus points us toward.

• Love is contagious.

• Encouragement:

  It calls for Christians to actively encourage one another, which can be seen as a form of support and motivation.

• We are called to love others as well (Matthew 22:37-40 & 1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

• Community:

  The verse stresses the importance of maintaining fellowship and not abandoning the practice of gathering together for worship, fellowship and encouragement.

• Building relationship builds trust which in turn builds faith. We do this with each other but more importantly we do this with Christ and exemplify this to others.

• Prayer:

  While not explicitly mentioned, the act of considering these things, especially as we see the Day of the Lord approaching, suggests that it's a good time to be praying for one another and the world. (Philippians 4:6-7, James 5:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Galatians 6:2)