A wakeup call.

I'm gonna go ahead and start this post with pointing out and admitting that i am not a reader. I am not one of those people who just cant put a book down until it is finished. A book has to be something i am truly interested in for me to even enjoy it. And yes, i know that is not ideal and reading is something that i should love, but it's just not. I often tell myself i was not wired that way and i will never enjoy it. But my mother constantly pushes me to be 'a reader' because it can be very beneficial. 

Now with that said, Kayla gave me a book for my birthday called  Love Does. I gave her a funny smirk across the breakfast table as i opened my gift. She knows me better than most people, which means she knows i don't read for fun. But she assured me that she had heard great things about this book and it was about Uganda and loving on people so she thought it might interest me. Well i finally picked it up today and read the introduction and first few chapters, and she was right. (Which shouldn't have surprised me.)

Today as i read through the pages of Bob Goff journey through life a phrase struck me. 

"Jesus told the people He was with that it's not enough to just look like you love God. He said we'd know the extent of our love for God by how well we loved people."

 I read through the phrase 3 times saying it out loud, talk about a wakeup call. People don't base how much i love my Savior by my church attendance record or how fast i can do Bible drills. But they base it simply off how i treat them and others. As i started replaying the past couple weeks in my head i know that i have hurt people and not really even thought twice about it. And because of my careless acts people might have changed the amount they believe that i love Jesus. It's easy to read that and think "Well i'll do better next time." But i ACTUALLY want to do better next time, i want to be more aware of my words and my actions. I want for people to hear my name and not be able to say a bad thing about me. Not for my own pride but for my love my precious Savior. 

I challenge you to do the same thing. I'm not asking anyone to sacrifice anything major or become someone you're not. I just want you to think things though before you say and do them, and ponder how it will make you love for Jesus look.