“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” – 1 John 4:7
As Christians, we are encouraged to love one another. So in a world where love is defined in many different ways, who better to look at and follow His example than God, who is love (1 John 4:8)?
Like 1 John 4:16 explains, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
Love Others First
For many, love is a reciprocal response. Someone loves us, so we love them back. This all started with God, as 1 John 4:19 tells us, “We love because He first loved us.”
So what if, like God, we just start loving people first? Often this is easier said than done. Especially if, maybe like me, you’ve experienced a time when someone decided they just didn’t like you. In these cases, we usually don’t know why or what is the reason behind their feelings. When something like this happens, we can choose to overlook their attitudes toward us and love them anyway. Sometimes our unconditional love will win them over, but sometimes it doesn’t.
Still, that’s the risk we take when we choose to love others first. In these situations, we get a taste and a very small glimpse of what God has been dealing with down through the ages in loving those who don’t love Him back. In everyday life, we’re given countless opportunities to step out and love others in our homes, churches, workplaces, and communities.
Love Even When It’s Messy
God knows loving men and women in their sins is pretty messy. Romans 5:8 explains, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Likewise, parenthood helps many men and women understand how God could love us in our messes. It’s also good training ground for learning how to love others in their disarray. All around the world, moms and dads face unpleasant scenarios in taking care of children. From diaper disasters, food mishaps, exploring incidents, and more, parents push through the chaos to keep loving and caring for their children.
Likewise, loving others can be messy, especially when walking through various situations with them that are uncomfortable, unpleasant, or inconvenient.
Love Sacrificially
Real-life TV shows of love, romance, and marriage often give insight into how individuals view love and what they believe loving one another involves. Frequently when a prospective bride or groom is asked how they fell in love with the other person, his or her answer involves how the other person’s love makes them a better person or feel special and loved.
But what if once married, the other person stops making them feel like a better person? What happens if they stop feeling loved by their spouse?
For many couples, whether married for a few years or longer, they start to realize that love isn’t about how a spouse makes us feel but rather what cost are we willing to pay to show them love. Are we willing to give up our pride, selfishness, resources, plans, and more if needed to love our husband or wife?
John 3:16 describes the high cost God was willing to pay to demonstrate His love to us “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God demonstrated the high cost of loving others and how to love sacrificially. He paid the ultimate price to prove His love to us. As the Author, Creator, and only Source of love, He modeled what it means to express love to those around us by loving us first, loving us in our messiness of sin, and loving us sacrificially.
Are you willing to lovingly reach out to others this week? If so, ask God to help you love others like He loves you by loving them first, sacrificially, and in their messiness.
By Lynette Kittle
