Love One Another – May 11, 2021

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:11

Love One Another

Dig down deep enough, and we can find something unlovable about anyone. Sometimes we don’t have to dig too far. It’s obvious. How can we ever find the strength to love people who are difficult to love?

Dear friends, God loves us. He knows unlovable things about each of us, and he still loves us so much that he sent his one and only Son to be our Savior. When we are feeling unlovable or unloved, we can return to that comfort. God still loves us, and his opinion counts more than any other in the universe.

Dear friends, God also loves those other people. He sent his Son for them as well. Taking his opinion into account, we realize that it’s pretty bad if we withhold our love from people God loves. So we take the confidence we have from being loved by God and make ourselves vulnerable to love the people he has put into our lives.

Because we are frail humans, we may struggle with the proper way to express our love in any given situation. But it’s worth the struggle to figure out the best ways to demonstrate our love for one another. When we fail, it’s an appropriate act of love to apologize and ask for forgiveness. When others fail and apologize, it is an act of love to forgive them.

We love them because he first loved us. Whenever we are not feeling it, return to that truth, and pray for strength.

Prayer:
Lord God, strengthen my love for you and for others, in the name of Jesus. Amen.