Today's Inspiration:

People need loving the most when they deserve it the least.

~John Harrison

1 John 4:7-8

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves is born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love, does not know God, because God is love.

It sounds so easy, just love each other, as Jesus loved us.  But, wow, loving others, it is so incredibly difficult, or maybe it's just hard for me.  I truly want to like everyone and strive hard to love and show love to everyone I meet, but I find it so incredibly hard at times, and when it gets hard, I feel failure.

1 John 13:34-35

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

As we go out and about in this world and meet various people, some people are so incredibly easy to love.  They just have such loving, kind and agreeable personalities that you want and can't help but to love them for all they are.  They are also the same people that you can't wait to be around again. And they make us feel good as Christians, cause we pour our love out onto them and into them and around them with no problem. 

Hebrews 13:1

Let brotherly love continue. 

When you come across the opposite people, the disagreeable, conceited, arrogant, cruel, mean and hateful people, it is definitely a whole different ball game.  It's so incredibly hard to love people, who come across as very unlovable.  But THIS is the challenge Jesus calls us to with the most passion.  

  Psalm 34:18

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

It's not that he doesn't want us to love ALL people, but he challenges us with the difficult ones for certain.  If we were blessed to only love the easy and agreeable, there would be no challenge for us.  But Jesus calls us to be like him, he had a passion for all people, but He had an extreme passion for the broken, disagreeable sinners and so must we.  


So how in the world do we love those kinds of people? We try to empathize with them, try not to assume or judge them and pray, for the ability to love and to lift them up. 

Galatians 5:22

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness

Chances are that many of the hard to loves of this world, didn't ever know love.  They probably don't know Jesus and have never been shown anything different from what they are.  People truly are products of their environment.  If they grow up in homes without love, how will they learn not just to love or what love is, if someone doesn't make an effort to show them and love them?  
This is what Jesus asks us to do, to step in and show them love, to teach them to love and how to accept love.  

1 John 1:7

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

From experience, I know this is so incredibly challenging.  I married a man that never knew love.  His love was given on a limited basis, his parents rarely ever told them they loved him, hugging wasn't the type of physical contact he received and praise was never given (in their defense, they raised him as they were raised).  To love him is hard, for him to accept love, is even harder.  It's a vicious triangle, but over the years, he has broken down some and while loving him today is still hard, it's getting easier, especially when I keep in the fore front of my mind, the conditions to which he grew up and the fact that love was not given openly and freely as it was to me.  I persist and I continue to love him, even when he is trying his best to make me hate him, for I am not just his wife, but I am a Christian and Jesus has called me to love.  And with my husband, he gave me my biggest challenge in loving.

1 Peter 4:8 

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Loving people is a lot of work and takes a lot of effort for me.  It just doesn't come natural.  I constantly find myself having to reel back negative thoughts and emotions about the person who cut me off in traffic or the couple at church who despise my child for reasons I do not know, or the crabby customer service agent who is rude and uninformative.  I want so badly to give them a dish of their own, but I don't.  Instead I pray for them and force the love towards them, and it's a forced effort often.   I can't control how people act or who loves me or my children, but I can control how I react and how I love and how I teach my children to love.  I can do my part to fulfill Jesus destiny of love for everyone I meet or come into contact with, regardless of how difficult or challenging, I mean if Jesus could lay down his life out of love for us, then I can love all those in my life that make it hard or difficult to love, the family, the acquaintances and the strangers.  

John 15:13

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Today's Prayer

Dear Father, 

Thank you for giving us the ability to love and for making the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love.  Help me to always have love in my heart for any person that comes into my life.  Help me to love everyone as you love us.

In Jesus Name~