Choosing Love: Noticing and Blessing Others Daily
Summary
Today can be a remarkable day if we choose to make it about love. By dedicating ourselves to bringing love to those around us and to the world, we can end the day with gratitude and fulfillment. This involves two primary tasks: noticing and blessing. We must notice the details of people—their expressions, words, and emotions—and the world around us. Then, we must bless them by delighting in, helping, and serving them. Our ultimate guide in this is Jesus, who exemplified self-sacrificing love through the cross and resurrection, demonstrating the triumph of love and life.
Dallas Willard defines love as the will to good, or benevolence, which is distinct from malice and indifference. Love is not merely desire; it is the promotion of another's good for their own sake. This distinction is crucial, as our culture often confuses love with lust or mere desire. God's essence is love, and His creation is an expression of His will to good. It is not a miracle that God loves us; rather, it would be a miracle if He did not, for God cannot fail to will the good.
Today, we are invited to make it a great day by noticing the details of those around us and willing their good. Love involves a deep awareness and appreciation of others, as illustrated by stories of people who have been profoundly impacted by simple acts of attention and care. We are encouraged to look deeply into the eyes of others, listen to their voices, and respond with love and kindness. By doing so, we align ourselves with God's love and bring goodness to the world.
Key Takeaways:
- Love is about noticing and blessing. By paying attention to the details of people and the world around us, we can bring love into every interaction. This requires a conscious effort to see beyond the surface and engage with others meaningfully. [01:00]
- Love is the will to good, distinct from desire or malice. It is about promoting the good of others for their own sake, not for what we can gain. This understanding challenges us to examine our motives and align them with true love. [02:19]
- God's essence is love, and His creation reflects His will to good. It is not miraculous that God loves us; it is His nature. Recognizing this helps us understand the depth of God's love and our call to reflect that love in our lives. [07:34]
- Love involves a deep awareness and appreciation of others. By noticing the details of those around us, we can respond with love and kindness, bringing healing and joy to their lives. This requires intentionality and a willingness to engage deeply. [08:51]
- We are invited to make today a great day by willing the good for others. This involves moving beyond indifference and actively seeking to bless those we encounter. By doing so, we participate in God's love and bring goodness to the world. [10:52]
Youtube Chapters:
- [00:00] - Welcome
- [00:33] - The Possibility of a Great Day
- [01:00] - Noticing and Blessing
- [01:41] - Jesus as Our Teacher
- [02:19] - Defining Love
- [02:58] - Love vs. Malice and Indifference
- [04:14] - Delight in Creation
- [05:19] - Love vs. Desire
- [06:26] - God's Essence as Love
- [07:34] - The Nature of God's Love
- [08:01] - The Power of Noticing
- [09:32] - The Impact of Simple Acts
- [10:27] - Love's Feeling Tone
- [10:52] - Willing the Good
- [11:20] - Closing Remarks
Study Guide
Bible Study Discussion Guide
Bible Reading:
1. 1 John 4:7-8 (NIV) - "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
2. John 13:34-35 (NIV) - "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
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Observation Questions:
1. According to the sermon, what are the two primary tasks involved in making today about love? ([00:44])
2. How does Dallas Willard define love, and how is it distinct from desire or malice? ([02:19])
3. What example from the sermon illustrates the power of noticing details in expressing love? ([08:01])
4. How does the sermon describe God's nature in relation to love? ([07:34])
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Interpretation Questions:
1. What does it mean to "will the good" for others, and how does this differ from simply desiring something for oneself? ([02:44])
2. How does the sermon suggest that noticing details about others can lead to deeper expressions of love? ([08:51])
3. In what ways does the sermon challenge cultural misconceptions about love and desire? ([06:02])
4. How does the concept of God's love being an inherent part of His nature impact our understanding of how we should love others? ([07:34])
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Application Questions:
1. Reflect on a recent interaction where you could have noticed more details about the person you were with. How might that have changed the outcome of the interaction? ([08:51])
2. Think of someone in your life who you find difficult to love. What is one specific way you can "will their good" this week? ([10:52])
3. The sermon mentions the importance of moving beyond indifference. Identify an area in your life where you tend to be indifferent. What is one step you can take to engage more intentionally? ([03:30])
4. How can you incorporate the practice of "noticing and blessing" into your daily routine? What might that look like in your workplace or home? ([01:00])
5. Consider the distinction between love and desire as discussed in the sermon. How can you ensure that your actions towards others are motivated by true love rather than self-interest? ([05:48])
6. The sermon invites us to make today a great day by loving others. What is one specific action you can take today to bring love into an interaction with someone you encounter? ([10:52])
7. Reflect on the idea that God's love is an expression of His will to good. How does this understanding influence the way you view your own capacity to love others? ([07:34])
Devotional
Day 1: Love as Active Engagement
Love is about noticing and blessing. By paying attention to the details of people and the world around us, we can bring love into every interaction. This requires a conscious effort to see beyond the surface and engage with others meaningfully. [01:00]
"Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:4, ESV)
Reflection: Think of someone you encounter regularly but don't know well. How can you intentionally notice and bless them today?
Day 2: Love as the Will to Good
Love is the will to good, distinct from desire or malice. It is about promoting the good of others for their own sake, not for what we can gain. This understanding challenges us to examine our motives and align them with true love. [02:19]
"Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good." (Romans 12:9, ESV)
Reflection: Consider a recent interaction where your motives were mixed. How can you approach similar situations with a pure will to good?
Day 3: God's Love as a Model
God's essence is love, and His creation reflects His will to good. It is not miraculous that God loves us; it is His nature. Recognizing this helps us understand the depth of God's love and our call to reflect that love in our lives. [07:34]
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God." (1 John 4:7, ESV)
Reflection: How can you reflect God's love in a specific relationship or situation today?
Day 4: The Power of Noticing
Love involves a deep awareness and appreciation of others. By noticing the details of those around us, we can respond with love and kindness, bringing healing and joy to their lives. This requires intentionality and a willingness to engage deeply. [08:51]
"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." (Romans 12:15, ESV)
Reflection: Identify someone who might need encouragement today. How can you show them that you truly see and appreciate them?
Day 5: Willing the Good for Others
We are invited to make today a great day by willing the good for others. This involves moving beyond indifference and actively seeking to bless those we encounter. By doing so, we participate in God's love and bring goodness to the world. [10:52]
"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9, ESV)
Reflection: What is one practical way you can actively seek to bless someone today, moving beyond indifference?
Quotes
Devote yourself today to the task of bringing love to the people and the world around you, and this will involve two primary tasks. One of them is to notice, to notice deeply and carefully, to notice details about people, their faces, and their bodies and their demeanors and their thoughts and their words, and then to notice details about the whole world, about creation, about moments, about what you learned. [00:50:07]
Our great teacher in this, of course, is Jesus, who brilliantly saw this is at the absolute center of human existence because it's the center of reality. And he says this about love: we're walking together in this lengthened season as we move towards the cross, which is the matchless ultimate deepest expression of self-sacrificing love in human history, and then the resurrection which is about the triumph of love and life. [01:41:92]
Dallas says this: we're going to make today about love. What exactly is love? Because we have to start there. And then here's what Dallas says: it is will to good or benevolence. Bene, good, benefactor, benefits, and then vulner's volition, to will to will the good. That is love. We love something or someone when we promote its good for its own sake, that's simply not for my sake or what I can get out of it. [02:19:20]
Love's contrary is malice. Love is to will the good. Malice, male, malformation, malodorous, mal is bad, will to bad. Abraham Lincoln understood precisely this distinction in the second inaugural. He famously said with malice toward none, with charity, that's a New Testament word, Jesus kind of love, agape love toward all. [02:49:12]
It's normal accompaniment is delight. So this is just brilliant, just these four thoughts: what exactly is love? It is to will to good. It's contrary as malice, will to bad. It's simple absence is indifference, and that's a great temptation. It's normal accompaniment is delight, and that's because all of creation is good because God has made it and God experiences that delight. [03:48:59]
What if that's an image of the heart of God because God created everything as an expression of love? My friend Ron says love is work made visible, and we see this supremely in creation. And when God looks at creation, looks at the sea creatures that he blesses, that he forms to frolic in the ocean, what if every time a dolphin leaps up out of the sea anywhere, which is happening every second all around the globe, God is doing a double fist pump saying this is the greatest day ever. [04:41:92]
Desire and love are of course compatible when desire is ruled by love, but most people today would unfortunately not even know the difference between them. Hence in our world, love constantly falls prey to lust. This is a major part of the deep sickness in contemporary life, and if you just pay attention, for example, to movies or to music, you will very often see how we fail to distinguish between love as willing the good, which is for the benefit of the other, and the desire to gratify what it is that I want for myself. [05:42:63]
By contrast, what characterizes the deepest essence of God is love, that is, will to good. One of the most amazing statements in all of literature, Jesus' friend John the beloved says it twice in his first letter, first John in the fourth chapter, God is love. His very creation of the world is an expression of will to good. It is then expected that the world would be found to him to be very good. [06:21:44]
His love and good will towards humans is therefore not an add-on to a nature that is fundamentally careless or even hostile. It is another expression, one of the more important ones of course, of what he always and in every respect is. It is not hard for God to love, but it is impossible given his nature for him not to love. People will sometimes say something like, man, is it what a miracle that God could love somebody like me. No, no, no, no, it would be a miracle for God not to love anybody because God is love. [07:09:20]
Anytime we care about anything, it could be football, could be the stock market, could be our bodies, it could be somebody else, we notice details. That's one of the things that love does. I remember watching my sister Barbie with two of our kids years ago, and it was just remarkable. I sat there for over an hour as all Barbie did was ask them a question and then they would respond, and Barbie would watch them, and depending on their facial expression and their body language, when she saw them being moved, she would ask another question and they both ended up in tears. [08:40:39]
I was talking this last week to a friend of mine I worked with many, many years ago. He's got a very serious diagnosis now, and it turns out he had become known by and deeply impacted by a man named Dallas Willard. He told me he talked about how one day when he was quite dejected, and Dallas invited him, would you come for a walk with me, and then Dallas just said, would you hold my hand. [09:25:68]
Today as you walk through the day, really notice people, look deeply into their eyes, into their faces, and listen to the tone of their voice, and when is their head droop and when are they filled with life. Ask God to give you eyes to see and ears to hear, and then will the good instead of going through life maliciously, you know, this driver, this person at work, I want to give them a piece of my mind like I got one despair, or with simple indifference just on autopilot. Today, will the good for all of God's earth and especially the people that God loves so much. [10:36:00]
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