Love more deeply.
Loving another more deeply is harder than most people think, but it is what we are commanded to do by Christ. Loving deeply is what he modeled for us through his ministry. Have you ever wondered if what you are doing is advancing the Kingdom of God? Are you surrounding your self with only believers and then wonder if you are reaching anyone beyond believers. Do you wonder if your words come across in the love, or your actions are loving the way that Christ commanded we love to everyone.
Are we living the Love that God commands of us? And if we are, is the Love of God we live leading people to the open arms of Christ.
Mathew 22:36-40 ″Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
We can not say the words “I love you” flippantly, the word Love means way to much. Love is everything that my God commands us to do. To love means you understand the need of the other person, and filling the need. When we love deeply we see that someone wants something in a certain way, and do everything possible to meet that need.
Loving means that when someone hurts us, we move beyond the hurt. We move beyond this hurt by finding the need in the hurt, and filling it from a joyful heart.
Sometimes loving someone means finding a need and filling it. Sometimes you will never even mention you are a follower of Christ. Sometimes no scripture will be needed to spread the Truth of Love. When we are acting in the love of Christ all that needs to be said is through our actions.
Sometimes loving someone can cause hurt when belief in the Truth causes relationships to be strained. When we stand up for the Truth of God, or point out an inconsistency with the Truth, we are loving those people. We are trying to lead them to Christ, the ultimate example of love. But more often than not(because they are blind to the truth) they see it as a rebuke, and do not see the love. I wonder if they are blind to it because the approach was not in love but self righteousness? Which is the opposite of loving.
In both situations, I will always answer if someone asks why I am Loving on them. I will point them to my Christ.
We love on fellow believers, just as we find the ways to love on non believers. We do so knowing that God and Christ are the model of love, and I love based on that example. Love because my faith in Christ commands me to. Love because Christ is Truth and Love. Love because He loves us.
Eph 2:4 -10 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
