I think of a motto as a short, easy to remember phrase that summarizes your goal in life.
Here are some examples I found after a quick Google search.
Do you have a motto? Send me an email with your motto and I'll credit your account a T-bone Buck.
In my younger days, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, my motto was "LGLO". I pronounced it like "Lego" but with an added "L": Leglo.
This motto came from a story in the Bible where the Jewish religious leaders were trying to trap Jesus by asking him what the most important commandment was. Jesus's reply was "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
Jesus understood that when you look at the Ten Commandments, the first 4 can be summarized with the phrase "Love God". Commandments 5-10 can be summarized with the phrase "Love Others". By not answering the religious leaders' question directly, Jesus gave them the perfect answer.
Let's take a look at Romans 12:9.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
When we look at this verse in light of Love God, Love Others, we must ask ourselves 2 questions:
Does God know if I'm being sincere when I'm doing something for him?
What will happen if someone finds out that the thing I did for them was insincere?
God knows our motives for doing something because he made us. We cannot hide from him the reason we are doing something. If you want to do some independent study on this, read the story of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts, chapter 5.
What would happen if you were asked to clean your room and you just shoved everything into your closet or under your bed? How about if you gave your mom a birthday card and didn't sign your name. Think about washing your dad's car without rolling up the windows. These are all examples of doing something without being sincere. For our actions to be demonstrations of love, they need to be sincere.
The second part of our verse "hate what is evil" is tricky. The bible tells us that since the time of Adam and Eve committing the first sin in the Garden of Eden, the world has been broken. God's perfect creation has been corrupted by evil and it is falling apart. In our society we are surrounded by evil. Are we supposed to hate everything? This would be a great question to talk about with your parents.
Send me an email telling me about talking to your parents about hating evil and I'll credit your account with a T-Bone buck.
Finally, what does it mean to cling to what is good? To cling means to stick. We should stick to the good things in our life like this monkey's toy sticks to the wall.
Now for the fun stuff!
According to thesprucepets.com, these are 7 primates that are kept as pets.
- Capuchin
- Chimpanzee
- Macaque
- Tamarin
- Squirrel Monkey
- Marmoset
- Guenon
Send me a picture of one of these primate for a T-Bone Buck in your account.
Joke of the week.
Adam bit the apple and, feeling great shame, covered himself with a fig leaf. Eve, too, felt shame and covered herself with a fig leaf. Then she went behind a bush to try on a maple leaf, a sycamore leaf, and an oak leaf.