How to Love

"Love God and He will enable you to love others

 even when they disappoint you."

-Francine Rivers 

Loving others is something that we are really good at, at times, but terrible at other times. And that makes sense because we are imperfect people who fail at many things, over and over again. Love is no exception. For me (and i'm pretty sure this is the same for 99.999% of all other people on earth), it's way easier to love people who show you love back. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure I'm not. The people who are kind, encouraging, understanding, uplifting, and generous towards you are the ones who we tend to be able to love back quicker and easier. That makes sense and it's pretty simple that way. I've got friends who are all of those things I have no trouble loving them.

However, there are also those people who are hard to love. I mean like people who are super duper hard to love. They don't encourage you, respect you, or treat you well. There's people you love who will disappoint you. People who will tear you down. Who will betray you. Its sucks but that's life and what happens. And guess what? We are supposed to love those people too. Yep. How fair is that, right? To me, these are the people who need to be loved the most. They need to be shown the love that God has shown us. They need to see what it is like to be loved and they need an example how to love. How to love others. All the time and in any circumstance. No matter what. Love like Jesus loves. Show others the same love God (who is so perfect it's beautiful) has shown to us (who are so imperfect it's ugly). We don't want to love the girl who talked bad about us. The guy who broke our heart. The parent who tears us down. The sibling who makes fun of us. The friend who betrayed us. The teacher who is as mean as an ogre (except not like Shrek cause he's nice). Those things are terrible and in my life, those kinds of people exist and have hurt me and not shown me love. So why show them love back? Well, because Jesus tells us to. And because Jesus DID. Love covers a multitude of sins.

Hold up just a second while I put this in perspective for ya-"But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Jesus chose to leave paradise with His Father, and come to earth as a human. He chose to come live among the worst people who would eventually beat him, deny him, mock him, betray him, and kill him. He knew this when he chose to become man. He underwent the worst kind of pain that any man has even known or experienced. He was hurt more than any man has ever been hurt.  Yet, he did it out of love. He knew what man would do; what WE would do, but He loved us anyways. How amazing.

That being said, we have a perfect example of love to follow. We must spend every day of our lives trying to love like Jesus loves. To every person, whether it's easy or hard. This is our call as Christians- to love others. The Bible tells us to in case you don't believe me. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 john 4:11). Oh, and here it is again- "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (john 13:34-35). If God tells you to love others, do it. Love them. Show them love. You don't have to like make big flashy signs with cute hearts that sing love songs and what not, you just have to show them you care about them. Forgive them. Speak kindly. Say only nice things about them. Show them Jesus. What you do will show them you love them. You can say “I love you”, but if your deeds don’t match up, your words mean nothing. And odds are, they will notice this and it will blow their minds. They will see that there is something different in you. And that difference would be, Jesus.  Live your life and love your fellow men NOT so people see you and lift you up, but so they see Jesus and lift him higher. Let your love bring glory to God and draw others to him as well.

God’s love for us is perfect, and yeah, we can’t love anyone perfectly, but we can try. We can strive to be like Him and in the process, others will Jesus and we will become closer to God. And that’s a win-win situation! God loves us without selfishness, without second thoughts, without procrastination. So should we. Love not for yourself or hope of being loved back by someone, but because they need it and God commands it. Love without thinking, “hmmm maybe not. They did hurt me really badly.” Love no matter what. Don’t wait to show someone love. Do it now and do it intentionally. One act of love can brighten someone’s whole day, or even their life. So love everyone. Because although it may be hard, it is not impossible.