Charity

This morning's devotional thought was I Cor. 16:14 "Let all your things be done with charity." This word "charity" is the Greek word agape, which means love, as in affection or benevolence. It's thinking and acting toward a person with kindly affection, and giving willingly of oneself for their sake, desiring to promote their prosperity and happiness. Some things are easy to do with love, but ALL things? Not so easy..

When it comes to performing certain tasks, doing them with love comes almost naturally. Things like making a gift for someone, or fixing up a surprise for a spouse. But what about the daily, mundane things, like washing dishes? picking up after someone? changing a stinky diaper? It's not always easy to conjure up affection while doing some of those! But the verse above says ALL things.

Agape love simply does not come naturally to any son of Adam or daughter of Eve. It takes effort, on purpose. Most of the times it takes denial of self and feelings. It's just not possible to feel affectionate and benevolent toward others, while having a mental pity party for yourself! ..But I'm finding out that that is one of the beauties of doing all things with agape. Once "self" is out of the way, there is real joy in doing those mundane tasks!