Love. We all want it in our lives. We long to feel love, be loved and give love.
Some people are in our lives and loving them comes easily. Others — well, not so much. They can come as a challenge, if we’re flat out honest.
And yet, Jesus calls us to love:
- “And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:21, NIV)
- “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.” (1 Peter 3:8, NIV)
- “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” (Romans 12:10, NIV)
- “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34, NIV)
We can have trouble with this whole concept of loving others. We want it boxed up nice and neat, easy for us to understand. And even easier for us to do. But it doesn’t come packaged in “easy”. Even Piglet needed some help figuring out love ….
Love, it surely can put us in such a quandary. There is only one way we are going to love those we find challenging. We are going to need to ask for God’s help ….
- Ask Him to make a deposit of love into your heart. “… God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has give us.” (Romans 5:5). With the help of His Spirit residing inside of us, He makes it possible to love those we think.
- Ask Him to love through us. “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” (1 John 4:7, NIV). God can give us His love for others so that we love with His love and in His power, not our own.
Pooh may have been onto something. You don’t spell love. You feel it. And you keep asking for His help until you feel it.
How do you spell love?
Jesus.
Today I am joining … Three Word Wednesday and Tell His Story and Coffee & Conversation and Wedded Wed. and Works For Me and A Little R & R and Women With Intention .
I love this: “How do you spell love? Jesus.” There is no greater, more perfect love. Love can be so beautiful and yet so heartbreaking. Jesus is surely our way to learning to love everyone, even those we struggle greatly with. Thanks for the beautiful encouragement!
Apart from Him, we will never be able to love those whom we find challenging. And it seems we always have a challenging one in our lives 🙂 I am grateful you were encouraged.
Yes, we can not share love unless we are filled with it ourselves and we cannot do this apart from Him. When we let Him love through us, it makes it not so tough. Blessings!
May we continually allow Him to deposit His love into our lives so that we can love others – even the unlovely. Grateful you stopped & shared!
Yes, especially the unlovely! Not always easy, but that is the point, right? We cannot do it without Him.
Ah, so simple, yet, really, I lose sight of Jesus and his love sometimes and make life way more complicated. Thanks for sharing this at #ThreeWordWednesday.
Kristin, it is so easy to lose sight of our source of love when we are dealing with the unlovable. May we be filled with Him so that we can let His love ooze onto others. Glad to join you again!
I LOVE this post…the hardest part of loving the way Jesus said to was learning to forgive what had been done to me as a child. I wrestled with Him about it, but by His grace I was able to forgive. Only through that process was I able to become truly free.
Thanks for this post. Love to you.
I think you hit on a very important point, Lori, and that is – it is a process. A process takes continuous action & so we often must be patient with ourselves in this. So glad you stopped & shared your thoughts! It was a wonderful & needed point!
Okay, I love this Wednesdays With Winnie! Went back and read your first post too. 🙂 And this . . . makes you so very grateful that we can always call on Him (He who is Love) for help. Blessings to you, friend. xoxo
Beth, I cannot believe how much I am enjoying looking at quotes from Winnie. He is the One we can call on for help in loving those who are a challenge. And then, I bet at times, we are the ones who are a challenge for others to love 🙂 Now there’s something for me to think about too! I am so glad you are enjoying Wednesdays too. Much love!
This is so crucial–to look to Christ for our ability to love. I had to pray for God to work in my heart to “love” just today–some days it’s an all day prayer! 😉 Thanks for this profound reminder, Joanne! And I’d appreciate your prayers too. I’ve been trying to resolve website issues all day, hence the lateness in coming by. I figure God can not only help me to love others when I ask Him but help me with my website when I and others ask Him! 🙂
Beth, praying tonight that you would be able to figure out the website issues. And for God to keep it up & running smoothly. Blessings!