P.S. You don’t have to agree with me on this issue. We live in a system that makes people suspicious when you’re so good to someone and unsurprised when you do them bad. Love has become self-centeredness and people will be quick to take advantage of whatever love you have for them. Loving one another has therefore become culturally irrelevant.
Loving one another with the Love of God means loving people unconditionally. Regardless of the person’s actions, words and deeds, your love is unrelenting. This is the kind of love that makes everyone know that we are disciples of Jesus (John 13:35). If you can show love to someone who feels unworthy, dirty or hard-hearted, it changes their lives forever.
You cannot love someone more than you love yourself. Therefore, how you love others can depict how much you love yourself unconditionally. If someone wants to capitalize on your love for them by having you to prove it in any form, they don’t love you unconditionally. Remember, love is not earned. If there’s a reason why you love someone, that’s the condition for your love. Think about it!
Loving with the Love of God means sacrificing your life for others. Jesus laid His life for us so that we’ll be able to lay down ours for others. This is what He means by losing your life for His sake (Matt 10:39, Matt 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24 says the same thing). No matter what we do, our decisions affect other people. Love does not sacrifice others for the sake of oneself. It does not mean sacrificing oneself to the detriment of oneself either.
There is the need to understand that you CAN lift others up by lifting yourself up. It’s not always that one has to come down for another to go up. Sacrifice is not always a substitution. Most times, it is taking that better alternative. Sacrificing for others simply means taking decisions that not only benefits you but benefits others also.
Loving one another with the Love of God means seeing the good in people even in their evil. If God could see a great apostle to the Gentiles in a serial killer, why can’t you? Of course, this is not about being optimistic or positive-minded. It is about how you see people. Do you see people as their mistakes? Do you identify them with their flaws? This is a trustworthy saying; you cannot genuinely love someone and not see their true pure state. Love makes us understand that anything bad or evil people emulate is not their true nature. “Love does not rejoice in evil”.
People are bigger than their shortcomings. How you identify them says more about you than about them.
If only you could see through God’s eyes for one second and see how He sees them. God has indeed given us His eyes as the Body of Christ. If God can see bravery in Gideon who thought he was the biggest coward in the world, then you can too. If God can see a deliverer in a man who had become an outcast and send Moses back to Egypt and use him mightily, then you can too. But it’s only through God’s eyes.
We can only love others unconditionally if we love ourselves unconditionally. On the other hand, we cannot love ourselves unconditionally and love others conditionally. It’s impossible! Truth is, we can only love ourselves unconditionally if we accept God’s unconditional love for us.
God loves you. It’s not a theory. Once you bask in His Love and begin to experience His Love shed abroad in your heart, His Love flows to you through you to others. Therefore, our love for others shows that we love God. We cannot say we love God unconditionally if we don’t love others unconditionally. Unconditional Love is an unbroken chain. And it all begins with accepting God’s Love for you. Understand that God loves you. Love yourself. Love others. Love God.
I love you ❤