Some people are easy to love and others, well not so much. Recently in my quiet time I've been studying about how to truly love others and what it means to love people the way Christ does.
Obviously, I'm going to fail every day, I'm human, I won't always love others the way I'm called to, but I'm going to try.
For so long I thought of love as feeling or an emotion. But love is so much greater than that...although it's great to "feel" loved it's an even better feeling to show love. Loving is something we're called to do--it's an action.
Everyone, including me loves the verses in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. I have a poster of it hanging in my wall, it's highlighted in my Bible, and I can recite it by memory, but until recently I hadn't really explored and prayed over what it really meant. It's a guide on how to love--how to loves others, the way that Christ loves you and me.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
Paul is telling us what love looks like, in these verses he isn't describing a feeling, but love as an action.
Love is being patient with people who typically would drive you nuts. Love is being kind to those who are un-kind to you. Love is being happy for others in their success and accomplishments. Love is being humble with others. Love is about others, not about yourself. Love is being quick to listen, and slow to speak and anger. Loving others means you don't hold grudges, and you don't keep score, you simply keep loving. (Because let's be honest if God did that with us we'd be in a very unloving place.) Love does not take delight in sin but rejoices in truth, and righteousness. Love ALWAYS protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. It NEVER fails. It ALWAYS protects, trusts, hopes, and preserves. It doesn't say on the days when it's easy, or when it's someone you like, or when you're feeling up to it.
God's two greatest commands are love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and secondly to love your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10:27) We are called to love, plain and simple. The very essence of God is love, and if we are to become more like Christ, what better way to be known than by the way we love others.
It is so hard to love some people for a variety of different reasons, I am painfully aware of that, but that doesn't dimmish the value of what we are called to do, just because it's hard or uncomfortable. God's truly changing my heart on what it looks like for me to love others in my life and I'm excited about that because if I love others the way Christ loves me, where 's that going to point people? Easy, to the Lord and isn't that what I'm called to do. Jesus said in John 13:35, " Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples." My prayer is that others will see the light of Christ in me by the way that I treat them, that they'll know there's something different about me.
Honestly, I often make excuses on why I can't love people the way we're taught to in 1 Corinthians. People are either mean to me, or annoying, or awkward, or I just don't have the energy. Bottom line regardless of who it is or what they've done to me I am called to love. Look at Jesus, he was nailed to the cross by people He came to serve and love, but yet He loves and His love is unending and unconditional.
God extends grace and love to us on a daily basis. I know I am completely unworthy, but yet it is given to me anyway, so how can I not extend grace and love to those around me? I'm not perfect, I'm going to mess up, I'm going to have moments when I'm not loving or graceful, but I'm excited that God's changing my heart to be more like Him. I'm excited to love people by serving them, because love isn't just something you feel, it's something you do.
Think about how different your circle of friends would be, or your school, or your community, or your neighborhood, or your work would be if we actually loved others the way Christ loves us? It would be radical, it would be awesome, and it would without a doubt change the world.
A great word from the Word
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