Sunday evening at Hopewell Mennonite Church was “impromptu” for the first hour of the service.

I was called on to answer the question “What is love?” Briefly. Say in 2-3 minutes.

So ten minutes later (give or take two), the moderator called me forward to speak my piece.

Love is the capacity to live for the good of another.

A measure of this has been given to all people. Back before creating man, God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

And in 1 John 4:10 we’re reminded of God’s own demonstration of love: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

There’s your answer to what love is.

God calls us to that.

And from Creation He stamped us with His image…and so gave us the capacity to live for the good of another.

(If I talked for more than two minutes, it wasn’t by much. But then, I was supposed to be super brief. And I had little advance warning. And my head wasn’t feeling well at all. Upshot: Thank God for His help.)

The fruit of pride is heavy and abundant and bitter.

And pride itself is sneaky and deceptive and often well camouflaged.

I know.

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. —1 Peter 5:6.

Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.

O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see we beseech thee, we are all thy people. —Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. —It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

Prov. 16:5. Isa. 64:8,9. -Jer. 31:18,19. -Lam. 3:27. Job 5:6,7.

Daily Light on the Daily Path | September 27, Morning

Egotism, self-promotion, pride — repent of it lest it consume you and your potential and your dreams!