{"id":3869,"date":"2025-05-01T07:40:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T07:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/?p=3869"},"modified":"2025-04-27T18:48:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T18:48:01","slug":"porcupine-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/porcupine-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Porcupine Love\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Thursday, May 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Porcupine Love\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.<\/em><strong>1 Peter 1:22<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s be honest: loving people can be difficult. It\u2019s been said that loving others is like two porcupines trying to huddle together on a cold night\u2014\u201cThey needed each other, even though they needled each other.\u201d It\u2019s funny\u2026 and painfully true. We crave connection, but sometimes we hurt each other in the process. Even within the church, among brothers and sisters in Christ, love can be complicated. Misunderstandings, offenses, personality clashes\u2014they happen. And they sting.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Peter calls us to a love that is sincere (genuine, without pretense), deep (fervent, constant), and from the heart (our emotions, will, and desires). Why? Because God is love. And if we\u2019ve truly received His love, we are commanded\u2014not suggested\u2014to extend it to others.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe today there\u2019s someone in your life, maybe even in your church family, who hasn\u2019t experienced that kind of love from you. Maybe they\u2019ve experienced distance, dismissal, or even hurt. If you truly want to follow Jesus, you already know what to do.<\/p>\n<p>Loving others deeply often means dying to pride, letting go of past wounds, and leaning into grace. It\u2019s not something we can do in our own strength. But the Holy Spirit empowers us to love in ways that reflect the heart of God.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prayer for today<\/strong>: <em>God of Love, thank you for coming to me to show me Your love. Help me now to show this same love to others as I represent you. Amen<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday, May 1 Porcupine Love\u00a0 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.1 Peter 1:22 Let\u2019s be honest: loving people can be difficult. It\u2019s been said that loving others is like two porcupines trying to huddle together [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3876,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869\/revisions\/3876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}