Serve One Another in Love no. 15

“Beloved friends, let us love one another; because love is from God; and everyone who loves has God as his Father and knows God. Those who do not love, do not know God; because God is love. Here is how God showed his love among us: God sent his only Son into the world, so that through him we might have life. Here is what love is: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the kapparah for our sins” (1 Yochanan (1 Jo) 4:7-10). You ever try to hug someone that just isn’t into the hug? You ever try to hug someone that has no interest in a hug? That is what it is like for God a lot of the time. He keeps trying to show us His love and we don’t want it His way or we are actively fighting against His love. We don’t want His hug and there are plenty of folks out there that don’t want our hugs either. 

Does that mean He stops hugging? Does that mean we stop hugging? Of course not. Loving your neighbor that doesn’t love God is not always easy. Some folks make it easy and some folks are the most trying and frustrating folks in the world. BUT that doesn’t change who we are, “Beloved friends, if this is how God loved us, we likewise ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains united with us, and our love for him has been brought to its goal in us” (1 Yochanan (1 Jo) 4:11-12). Love is difficult because it means we don’t always get our way. Love means a lot of compromise on our plans. Love means a lot of sacrifice for the other. Love means fixing things that we don’t want to fix. Love means apologizing and humbling ourselves. Love means making a lot of choices that make us uncomfortable. 

It is really easy and socially acceptable to not love people. It is easy to cut people out of your life. It is easy to turn your back on difficult people. It is easy to give up on hard cases that make your life difficult. Love is not easy. Love is simple BUT love asks us to do difficult things. When folks talk about the way of love being easy, they obviously do not walk that path because it is not easy. It is tough to love people because people are difficult to love. They do not want our hugs. They do not want us to look out for them. They do not want us to help them. A lot of times folks only want love on their own terms. BUT that isn’t God. God shows us what love is and how to do love in the example of Jesus. God became a person and went around with people showing love despite people not wanting His love and some people killing Him for His love. So, love is not easy. We need to be the adults, and sometimes the role model, in all our relationships by showing love, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, argued like a child; now that I have become a man, I have finished with childish ways. For now we see obscurely in a mirror, but then it will be face to face. Now I know partly; then I will know fully, just as God has fully known me. But for now, three things last — trust, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians (1 Co) 13:11-13).  

Serve His Kingdom by serving one another in love.

Grace and Shalom to your home. The Kingdom of God is now!

I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #SeekFirstTheKingdom #ServeOneAnotherIn Love #NotMyWayYHWH