Comma Llama is faced with a sign that temporarily turns his world upside down. He panics at his interpretation of the warning and requests assistance from his other punctuation mark neighbors. He soon discovers that his overreaction originated from one grammatical mistake!
Loving Your Neighbor: A Practical Guide to Keeping the Second Great Commandment explores what God actually means by the word "love." Often, in our culture, we use the word "love" to mean "like very, very much," as in, "I love pizza!" But then there are Bible verses that command us to love our enemies; clearly, the Lord cannot be asking us to like them very much.
This book looks first at the heart of love, as evidenced by God and others. From these scriptural records, we can see that spiritual love really means a selfless caring for the other. When we love, we must start with a motivation that focuses solely on the well-being of the other and not on any benefits to self.
Next, as this is a practical guide, this book examines "pictures" of love, words that give the reader a picture of how this love might actually practically work in our lives. Often, these biblical words have both a physical and a figurative usage. The physical usage gives us the picture, and the figurative usage shows us how to practically apply this in loving our neighbor.
Finally, the author shows that God has given us tools in the Bible to help us get better at loving our neighbor. God gave us the commandment, but then He was loving enough to help us love and to help us grow in loving our neighbors.
This book is intended to introduce life situations which many of us experience. Some are very serious and others are more lighthearted. But all of them are intended to induce the reader to think about what they might do in these circumstances and how to apply the Christian guiding principles to them. This book is intended to help the reader to read, think and grow into a more mature Christian.
Esther is a young Jewish woman living in the Persian Empire many years after her people were exiled there from the land of Israel. Although she has never seen the promised land, she knows God will take her there someday. For now, she has more pressing concerns. Daily life consists of working at the bakery and taking care of her dear uncle Mordecai, who has never been the same since the grisly murder of Esther's parents and grandparents sixteen years ago. They were killed for being Jewish, and Mordecai tells Esther to never tell anyone she is a Jew.
Esther loves God and knows He is with her at every moment. She also loves her uncle but sometimes wishes to find her own happiness, that kind of love she imagines between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. One night, soldiers arrive and take her to King Xerxes's harem since he is looking for a new queen to replace Queen Vashti, who had displeased him. To Esther's surprise, she and Xerxes feel a sense of trust with each other, and he decides to make her queen. Over time, they fall deeply in love. There's just one thing missing. Xerxes doesn't know Esther is Jewish. Esther wants to tell him to share her whole heart with her beloved husband, but she has always been taught not to speak about being Jewish, not to anyone.
Will Esther and Xerxes's love for each other be enough to protect both Esther and her people? Will she be able to speak and reveal her true self to her husband and the kingdom? When an evil plot to destroy the Jews is concocted by Haman, Xerxes's second-in-command, Esther must decide to speak up or not. In doing so, she risks her life, as it is against the law to approach the king without being summoned. Will Xerxes's love for her be more powerful than the law? Which will win, love or law?
