This is a beautiful scripture, it’s simple but deep and for the first time God turned it around in my own life and showed me how to apply it to my love walk. I was instantly awed by the power of the Word to transform letters on a page into a mind blowing, heart melting lesson for day to day life. Because this whole passage is talking in general about love I don’t need to clue you into the context, how it reads is the context. However, because of the beauty and majesty of God’s love I strongly encourage everyone to read the entire chapter, or book.
Any who let’s get digging. When this scripture popped up on my FB page I almost skimmed it and moved on but something jumped out at me. There are some people in my life, like most of us have, that are not as easy to love as others. When I read this scripture God whispered in my heart to look closer. Because He first loved me I love Him. I don’t know my biological father, I have vague memories of him when I was 6 which was the last time I saw or heard from him. I have no more love for him then I do a stranger on the street. I think all God’s children are beautiful simply because they are God’s children, but because I’ve never received any fatherly love from him I don’t love him like a father. My daughter, on the other hand, adores my husband. He has been in love with her since before she was born, when she wakes up in the morning and sees him the first words out of her mouth to daddy is ‘pretty’. I know I’m thinking ‘aww’ as I write this, it is very cute, she usually pets him a little while she says it. Why does my 13 month old daughter do this? Most likely because for 13 months my husband has petted her and called her pretty.
In my previous blogs I’ve spoken a lot about loving people, about how God calls us to treat others, and even gave a ‘how to’ on love. So I have full confidence that you’ll be able to act this scripture out in your life.
Now tying this in to the less lovable people in our lives…I’m sure you already know where I’m going with this…
There are people in our lives that refuse to play nice, that refuse to love us. Some of them are saved, some of them are not. Some of them we genuinely want to love us, but they don’t seem to know how. The people in my life that refuse to love me are people who are eat up with negativity and seem to find pleasure in upsetting others. God spoke this to me today ‘before they can love you, you have to first love them’. To this my very whiny flesh responded ‘But Gooood…I do love them, I just don’t like them.’ But in my spirit I knew what He was saying, in my heart I loved them, I prayed for them and I felt sorry for them, but in my actions…ouch that was another story. Sure I wasn’t rude to them, but I very rarely went out of my way to exhibit the Christ like love that should be flowing out of me.
As a side note I’m going to let you in on a secret satan doesn’t want you to know, offense will put a plug in the stream of love in your life. It comes from God, magnified by Christ; hand delivered by the Holy Spirit, and is poured out to the world through you! When an unlovable person comes your way and offends you that effectively stops the flow of love which stops the work of God in your life. It’s a nasty little path the enemy puts us on, as the song says it’s a slow fade. Becoming able to forgive offense is a major part of understanding love. When we understand love we can receive it, when we receive it we can give it.
The people in our lives can not love us unless we first love them. A few tips I’ll give you that really help me is not talking about people out loud, if you have a negative thought keep it to yourself. Those negative thoughts are fiery darts sent your way from the devil and when you speak them out loud his lies become your truths. Once you conquer not talking crap about an unlovable person begin working on your thoughts, every time you have a negative thought about a person focus on something positive about them.
‘Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.’ Philippians 4:8
There’s a very special quote I heard once that I repeat often ‘your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, and your actions become your habits.’ I don’t know who said it but it comes to play here. I strongly believe that the thing lacking the most in Christians is not faith, but love. We don’t get it, we don’t use it, and we don’t show it. The end result is a whole lot of unsaved people saying ‘I don’t know what God they serve but I sure don’t want to meet him.’
I want this generation, this year in time, to be a time they talk about for years to come, a time when the most amazing love revolution spread throughout the body of Christ. It starts with you, it starts with every thought you have and every word that comes out of your mouth. You have the power to change the world by simply loving the people in it, I’ve seen this love spread like chain mail. I almost want to end this by saying IF YOU DON’T SHOW LOVE TO 8 PEOPLE IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN TO YOU TOMORROW AT 7:10 AM. But the truth is, if you don’t show love to even one person something bad is already happening to you and through you right now. Lets make a stand this year for love, link arms as Christians and stand firm on LOVE.
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