Love God, Love People
Love your neighbor as yourself. We’ve read it multiple times in the scriptures. Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27. It’s stated that it is the second greatest commandment so it must be important, right? There are 2 things that we as Christians are called to do: love God and love others. The first part sounds pretty easy right? God is almighty, all-knowing, he is our Creator, so it seems a little bit easier to love him. People, on the other hand, can be a little trickier to love. They can hurt us and betray us, which makes it hard to love them in those moments. You may think to yourself, “Well, I don’t need to love them. I can just go along, minding my own business so we won’t ever cross each other’s paths and we won’t have to love one another.” But even in those moments when it seems really hard, the Lord still calls us to love. We receive love vertically from our Heavenly Father, so we can give love horizontally to the people around us. So, how exactly can we learn to love our neighbors as ourselves? Let’s talk about it.
I wholeheartedly believe that in order to really and truly understand what love is and how to love others, we must first know the Father’s love and allow ourselves to receive it from him. 1 John 4:19-21 says this, “We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” We know that we can never love someone as perfectly as God loves us because of our broken, human hearts. However, we can step fully into the love he has for us and choose to love those around us no matter what. Love is hard. It’s sacrificial, it’s patient, it can be uncomfortable. But that’s what it looks like to truly love someone. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay one’s life down for one’s friends.” Loving those around you is choosing to be there for them when they’re being difficult. Lifting them up when they feel like they’re falling. Being a light to them when all they see is darkness. It’s so much bigger than just an emotion. It’s so much bigger than you.
Loving God first allows us to love others well. He made a way for us to know what true love looks like when he sacrificed his son Jesus by sending him to die a death that we all deserve, and he did it just so we could know him personally and have a relationship with him. Fully embrace the love God has for you because when that is present, he gives you the ability to love those around you and to spread his Kingdom through that love.
So how do we choose love? For starters, I think that we should stop leading with our feelings. If we choose to love people based on our mood that day, our love will be always be inconsistent. If we only chose to love people when it was convenient for us, we would never make the time to act on it. I think we need to seek to love like Jesus. His love is not contingent on our works or how he’s feeling that day. It does not waver because he’s “too busy” or “not in the mood.” It is constant and when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we can never un-earn his love.
I want to leave you with this question: How does the way Jesus loves you effect how you look at what it means to love others? Is it conditional or unconditional? Is it limitless or do you only have so much to give? I challenge us all to think about this as we go about our days. Love like Jesus does. You never know who it may impact.
Challenges:
Ask the Lord to open up your heart more every day to receive his love. Like the scripture says, we love because God loved us first. The more we receive his love, the better we can love those around us.
Find one thing to do every day that shows love to someone around you. Whether it’s baking a treat, sending a text, praying over them, etc. Little actions like this share the love of Christ and that should be our goal.
Be rooted in love. Ask the Lord for you to be so strongly rooted in the love he gives you that love would be your natural response to people. That we would be ABOUNDING in love!
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for this brand new day! Thank you for another morning full of new mercies! Thank you that you love us unconditionally and that we can never do anything to un-earn that love. I pray for our hearts to receive that love today. So that we can fully walk in who you made us to be and spread the gospel through loving those around us. I pray for patience, that we would be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. I pray that love would be our first and most natural response to others. May we would be so rooted in love that, even when it’s hard, we don’t rely on our emotions, but rather the love we receive from you. Help us to love the way you do. May you receive all the glory, honor and praise in all that we do. We love you and we thank you for the many blessings you have given us. In Jesus’ name! Amen!