When you hear the word LOVE what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
A huge wedding with a bride and groom?
Renewing Vows?
A big happy family?
A hug from your favorite relative?
A gift from your best friend?
In many ways love is displayed in these things in its own way. I was walking around my apartment singing “Love” by God’s Property/Kirk Franklin
As I was singing the song I back tracked to the start of the song.
Love a word that comes and goes
But do people really know
What it means to really love somebody?
And for a moment…well about 15 minutes I thought about that part of the song. Do we really know what it means to really love someone? What do we equate love with?
Giving money to the poor?
Buying a stranger’s meal?
Telling our significant other just how much we love them?
I believe that the Love that we all should know and display is Christ Like Love. It isn’t based on how we feel or a driving emotion. It something that is shown, not because someone did something for us, not because it’s something that we have to do, and not because we want something in return. It’s because we all need it. We all need a love that’s doesn’t come with conditions or a pay back method.
Put your belief of what’s right and wrong on the back burner. Now if you come into contact with someone who doesn’t agree with your beliefs what’s your first thought? To explain why you are right, to explain your belief without trying to alter theirs, or to still show them love through the conversation you are having? Many times (and yes I’m guilty of this) whenever I would come into contact with someone who didn’t agree with my beliefs my first thought was to prove why I believed what I did, but even when I would do that it wasn’t coming from an area of love. It was coming from a place of defense. I would choose not to show love to people because they didn’t believe what I believed or agreed with what I thought was true.
But I’m proud to say that God revealed that area in me and worked on that place of love. God showed me that we are always called to show love and many times that ministers louder than any point I’m trying to prove. We are called to LOVE. It’s an action that is meant to be displayed.
A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.John 13:34
Christ like love is what we are to display to others, not choosy love. (Where we choose who we want to love and who we don’t.) Despite us being different I’m choosing to love you because I want to show that I can love you even if we are different, believe differently, or think differently. We are able to speak the same language and that’s LOVE.
Jesus fellowshipped with everyone. He showed loved to everyone even the ones who didn’t accept who He was. How did Jesus show love to them? By dying for them. They didn’t have to earn his love, He gave it freely.
Many times we want people to earn our love. We want them to do something for us or agree with our thoughts or beliefs before we show them love, but that’s not what God wants. It’s almost like a give me respect to get respect mentality, but we shouldn’t show love to get love we should show love because we want others to know they are loved despite our differences. We should want to show others that we can love them even in the mist of being done wrong and having different backgrounds/beliefs.
We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not ,love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.1 John 4:19-21
I’m not saying let people run over you or use you, but you can even love people from a distance. But make sure its Love not just distancing. We can pray for a person from a distance give a person over to God from a distance and do it all in Love.
Loving people is a choice and many times it’s a hard choice, but we live in a world that needs love… Tough Love and I don’t mean rude, throwing Jesus in people’s faces love. I mean the kind of love that doesn’t quit despite how we feel or what we think about a person. We need that “despite of love”
despite of what they did:
despite of what they believe:
despite of what they think about me:
despite of what they said to me:
despite how they made me feel:
despite how they hurt me:
despite of how I want to act towards them:
I WILL show Love because it’s something we all need.
“But I say to you, LOVE your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in Heaven. For he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and unjust.”Matthew 5:44-45
God chooses to LOVE us despite our sins, despite our mistakes, despite our flaws, and despite any wrong we may have done. He doesn’t look at any of that. He chooses to give his love freely to us, why can’t we do the same for our neighbor. Yes, it’s HARD to show love to people who seem unlovable! I get it, but do you really think that we are a perfect candidate who deserves God love? We don’t deserve anything, so why do we choose to make others work for a LOVE that God freely gives to us that He wants us to freely give to others?
Why not stop looking at why we can’t love a person and start looking at how we can love a person! Today let’s show Christ like love to our fellow brothers and sisters. Just as Christ has showed us unconditional love. We didn’t have to earn it nor did we deserve it, but he gave it freely! Lets do the same!
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.1 John 4:10-11
God Has the Final Say 