Love (2)

Loving Others

The Bible emphasizes that our lives must be based on love. The most important commandments found in Scripture are to love God and to love each other (Matt. 22:37–40).

Scripture repeatedly emphasizes loving our neighbor (Gal. 5:14, Lev. 19:18 Matt. 19:19, Rom. 13:9, James 2:8)

It is natural to love your family and friends, but to love those who hate you and persecute you? (Matt. 5:43-45)

Indeed loving people is difficult. Yet this is what the Bible commands. "For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: we should love one another" (1 John 3:11). We spend time on what we deem important. For many of us these choices are valid: time with family and friends, work, prayer, serving the poor, fighting for rights, protesting wrongs. But as the Scripture reminds us, "And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing" (1 Cor. 13:3).

When we demonstrate Christian love, it distinguishes believers from the rest of the world. Jesus goes on to say, "By this [love] all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35)

How do we demonstrate the distinctiveness of Christian love? Because virtue is moral action we practice, how can we practice the glorious virtue of love?

·        Value the other person

·        open up to the other person

·        Accept people where they are

·        Look for Potential rather than Problems

And so on

 

We pray to always obey the commandment of love.