Sometimes Love is a Step of Faith

The light of God’s love shined within us when he sent his matchless Son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved him. It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life!

─ 1 John 4:9-11 TPT

S. Lewis said, “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him.”
Some people are just easy to love. They melt into your heart and eventually your arms, but then there are those who remind you of what it must feel like to cuddle a porcupine. The hard, the broken, those who have built walls that seem impenetrable – they were included when Jesus commanded that we love one another.

God loved you by faith. He knew you before you were born, and He loved you. Unconditionally He decided you would be worthy of His love. So He gave Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice to build a bridge back to Him.

And that’s what our verse today is all about. Because God loved you by faith, you can love others because of who you are in Christ. You’ve been given everything you need to love others, especially those who make it painful in some ways to love them.

It may take extra effort, at first, to show the love of God to others. You may need to dig deep to find common ground and express genuine compassion and interest, but you can do it. You can do all things because of Christ who lives in you.

Today’s One Thing

You probably thought of someone that you find difficult to love while you were reading this. Put an appointment reminder on your calendar or in your phone with an alert to demonstrate God’s love to that particular person no less than three times this week. Take time to pray about your encounter with them and ask the Holy Spirit to help you.

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