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You and I cannot be a spiritually mature follower of Jesus while remaining emotionally immature.
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Emotionally healthy followers of Jesus get better at loving others.
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Matthew 22:37
And He said to him, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
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Matthew 22:38-40
“And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets.”
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John 13:34,35
“A new commandment I give you that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
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1 John 4:12-17
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
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1 John 4:19-21
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
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Pete Scazzero
“Telling people to love better and more is not enough. They need practical skills incorporated into their spiritual formation to grow out of emotional infancy into emotional adulthood.”
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Mark #3 at Seven Marks
A disciple is one who responds to the Holy Spirit.
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Galatians 5:22,23
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
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Practices For This Week
1. Practice being fully present with people.
2. Be curious.
3. Be open to influence.
