Give Close Attention

Hi, i've really appreciated the part below from "How Free Are You?"... it has set me Free to recognize that Jesus is found by taking my eyes off of whatever currently feels like my "plight" and turning my attention and Care towards those around me, in the simplest ways... i also recently read the following "Are You Royalty?" and found it to express much of the same Attitude. Just thought i'd pass these on to y'all in case it would Benefit you as it has me. :) Sent By: love, m

3/16/2004

The freedom of Life is the freedom from a self-centered life. Freedom from pondering yourself and your situation, and instead turning your heart, your mind, and your eyes towards the situations around you, counting those as more important than yours. Freedom to love. That doesn’t mean you won’t have difficulties and that doesn’t mean that there won't be other people caring for you; that’s part of life. We all care for each other, and to have too much pride to not let others care about us is grotesque, too. He has given us freedom to be outside of ourselves. The practical life of not being controlled by thinking about yourself all the time—that’s Freedom! Are You Royalty? 1800’s “If you are fulfilling the royal law, according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' you are doing well” (James 2:8 NAS). So you feel yourself alone and empty-hearted? Then you have necessity indeed for fortitude and brave endurance! But, above all and before all, you must get out of your solitude. You cannot command for yourself the love you would gladly receive; it is not in your power to do that. But that noble love which is not asking but giving—that you can always have. Wherever your life touches another life, there you have an opportunity. To be with men and women in the ordinary forms of social interaction becomes a sacred and miraculous event when one carries into it the true spirit. To give close, sympathetic, observant, caring attention to every human being we touch; to try to get some sense of how he or she feels, what he is, what he needs; to make in some degree his interest our own, that disposition and habit would deliver any one of us from isolation or emptiness. It is Jesus, and solely where He is found: self-emptied and sacrificial care, attention, and love. -G.S.P.M.

•  He Died so that We could be FREE