Exhortations for The Soul

The topic today begs several questions:   Do we have to love everybody? What does it really mean to love everyone? How can we do this? Is it possible? Are there different levels of love that can be applied for different categories of people in our lives? Can we get away with just liking some people? Can we say we love everyone but we don’t take advantage of the chances we get to lend a helping hand to someone in need? Which comes first - Building personal relationships or building our relationship with God? I strongly believe that our relationship with God is most important, because no-one has a heaven to put us in.   Jeremiah 9:23-24 NIV says “This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” de...

A little over a hundred years ago, in the late 19th and early 20th century, there was what was called the temperance movement in the United States.   It was basically an effort to reduce the amount of alcohol people drink. One of its common symbols was the “water wagon” or “water cart.” So what would happen was, when someone decided they would stop drinking alcohol, they were said to be on the wagon. Remember now this was a water wagon, so the term meant they were riding on the water wagon instead of indulging in alcohol, metaphorically speaking. The water wagon referred to carts used to sprinkle water on dusty roads, but it became a symbolic image of sobriety. People on the wagon were pledging to drink water (or remain sober) instead of alcohol. Now if a person relapsed and began drinking again, they were said to have fallen off the wagon, meaning they had abandoned their commitment to stay sober. Over time, the expression took on a broader meaning and people would use it to refer...