Love Love Love!

Today we had our first bible study meeting, it was on love. I didn’t really think about how much this study would impact me! In preparing, it got me thinking about my family and my friends. I went on facebook and looked at some pictures of the my family reunion and went to my brother’s page and couldn’t stop laughing at some of the stuff he had put up. It felt good to look at people and say “I love them,” and revel in it.

The study was amazing, the Holy Spirit stirred our hearts a lot today. I feel like I’m on the edge of an epiphany or breakthrough. I’ve been overlooking something and not valuing it as much as I should. Looking at 1 Corinthians 13 I’ve taken it for granted, as “basic” Christianity, or “Obvious 101”. I’ve been overlooking one of the best passages in all of scripture, a passage that reveals how important love is and how foundational to everything it is because God is love.

This is so profound! Jesus talked about love so much yet I often times take it for granted and focus on the “Repent, believe” side of things. His great commandment to us is to “love our neighbor as ourselves”, along with the greatest commandment, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might” (Deut. 6:5).

I’ve been overlooking something so simple yet so essential! Day to day in my relationships my #1 concern is How do I make myself look good? How do I make this person like me? How do I maintain my image?

How selfish! How inwardly bent! Just reading these passages today transformed the rest of my day. With every person I met I tried my best to love them, to care for them, to listen to their needs, to laugh with them, to enjoy being with them. What a great experience! I need to do this everyday.

One of the things I thought about in our study was how do we actively love the ones we love? Too many people grow up taking everything for granted, never saying “I love you” to their parents, never taking the time to do something loving for a friend, never doing something submissive and serving for someone else. How differently would I live if I actively pursued the ones I love with acts of love and service? My parents won’t always be around – when they die will I regret everything I didn’t say or do for them? Not if I think about that today.

God is burning the idea of community into my mind. What if everyone tried to out-serve everybody? A guy held the door open for me today and I thought, “Awesome!” It’s simple, but it’s great. If we removed sin from the world (which Jesus will do completely one day) and filled everyone’s hearts with love for everyone, what would that look like? It’d look like the church at its best, when its caring, loving, and praying for people.

Love! The greatest of these is love. I’ve been a crappy lover of people. God’s fixing that, and the more I love Him and delight in Him the more I love people and care about them.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-9)

God turn me from myself to You and others. You are love and You define love. Please bless me with the ability to love and Holy Spirit may I love more and more and more, may I give more and more and more, and may I serve more and more and more, all because of You. In Jesus name, AMEN.