LET US -- NOT MAKE US

I heard a TV commercial that said concerning a sleeping potion, "it doesn't make you sleep, it let's you sleep." The idea was that this pill didn't force you to sleep; it relaxed you and let you go to sleep. This idea was also advanced in an e-mail posting that said, among other things, "you can't make people love you, but you can let them love you." Well, that's true. You can't force people to love you but you can give them good cause to love you and if the cause is strong enough, then people will just naturally fall in love with you. It's kinda like Solomon said about friendship: (Proverbs 18:24) A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly:..." If you want people to love you, you must be a lovely person.

Paul said in Philippians 4:8, "whatsoever things are lovely.... think on these things." A person thinking on lovely things becomes a lovely person and one who is easy to be loved by others. All this reminds me of the statement made by the Lord in Matthew 5:16: "Let your light so shine before men ..." This is done by our good works. But we must never advertise ourselves nor our righteousness.

When a person dies, the one who eulogizes him sometimes has a difficult task of thinking of some good thing to say about the deceased. But when a lovely person dies, many things come out concerning the good he has done that no one knew about. This is in harmony with another lesson the Lord gave mankind. (Matthew 6:1) "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."

(Philippians 2:15) "That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;"

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