Joyce Meyer's The Love Revolution Challenges Christians to Make a Difference

People of faith need to get out of their safe little box and reach out a helping hand to serve the many needs of those around them. Such is the message from Joyce Meyer in her book The Love Revolution.

Joyce Meyer in her book The Love Revolution seeks to break staid Christians out of their boring, safe "Christian" box where many live within a Christian community and are uncomfortable, even hostile, to anything outside that little box, anything the requires them to reach out to those who are different, those who do not hold the same world view, even to those who may not smell or look so nice.

But, as Joyce Meyer points out in The Love Revolution, Christianity and faith is all about love. Jesus is the embodiment of love. If we're not reaching out a helping hand to serve others, we are not being Christian, not living a life pleasing to Jesus and not fulfilling the great commission, which requires more than a Sunday go to meeting habit.

In fact, our safe Christianity may well be rooted in two things-selfishness and/or fear. Neither are Godly attributes. As Joyce Meyer points out in The Love Revolution, Jesus, love itself, is about letting go and finding joy in serving others in Jesus' name. Love is about offering a helping hand to serve others outside our comfortable circle. In The Love Revolution, Joyce Myer points out that one reason many do not serve is that it is hard to be the first to offer that helping hand. We are more comfortable staying with the crowd, but when we step out to serve, we'll find others will follow.

Offering a helping hand to serve may not be easy or convenient. Joyce Meyer in The Love Revolution shares experiences to show that serving can be costly mentally, physically and spiritually, but it also brings blessings far beyond our giving. As Meyer says, "Love requires sacrifice."

Joyce Meyer's The Love Revolution only confirmed what my husband and I had already learned when the church we then attended founded a partner church in an area and with a population usually forgotten by other churches and other Christian people. This populace could not support a church or church staff.

We became part of a core group who helped start a small church where the population is often transient, culturally diverse and financially unstable-especially in today's economic climate. We found a great many needs that we struggle to meet with love and a helping hand, without expecting anything in return. As Joyce Meyer shares with her own experiences in The Love Revolution, when we reached out to serve, as we laughed and cried together, we found something important-we found not just needy "people," we found new and dear friends. We also found that those we serve have given back much more than we have ever given with our "helping hand."

Along with Joyce Meyer in The Love Revolution, we've encouraged others, whatever a person's faith background, to reach a helping hand to serve a hurting person with God's love. As Joyce Meyer cautions, those who seek to serve must stop being mired in methods and find ways to serve those in a hurting world in a way they can understand, in a way that truly helps. As Joyce Meyer in The Love Revolution states, a helping hand isn't about serving food during the holidays or doing a good deed for those in need once a year to feel good, but committing to serve when needed, long-term.

A real helping hand comes from a heart that doesn't expect all those warm fuzzy feelings and doesn't expect praise. A real Love Revolution isn't about emotion, but a commitment to serve and a choice to show God's love to those who may have lost hope.

As Joyce Meyer shares in The Love Revolution, God doesn't expect us to be perfect. He expects us to be obedient and that means reaching out to serve those who can not pay back and may not say thank you. Sometimes efforts may even seem wasted. However, Christians and people of faith will never know how far the ripples of reaching out a helping hand will in go in The Love Revolution if we never start those ripples. The choice to serve brings blessing and hope.

Joyce Meyer's The Love Revolution will help propel Christians and people of faith to knock out the walls and serve others in Jesus' name.