Are you more loving?

Jesus made plain that the greatest commandment was to love God and love people. As a way to further spell out the implications of that kind of love, John wrote, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters" (1 John 3:16). I get the concept. I believe it. I accept it. I want to pattern my life around it. I want it to be self-evident in every area of my life.

The problem is that it's one thing to understand and accept a concept and quite another thing to see it fleshed out in my life with real people. Jesus expressed this clearly in the Sermon on the Mount. He said:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven . . . If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

Being perfect means to get to the place where we are perfect in love. That is the love standard of Jesus that we must strive for. But we all know that we fail to achieve it.

Donald Whitney writes, "The test of Christlikeness is not the greatness of your love toward those who love you, but the bounty of your love toward those who do not" (pg. 44).

I don't know about you, but loving difficult people is the greatest challenge for me. They don't deserve my love. They may take advantage of my love. They may reject my love. They may manipulate me as a result of my love. All of this is a real possibility whenever we love people - ALL people.

Yet somehow we are called to grow in love despite all the risks involved. The only way this is possible is for us to be filled up with God's love for us so that we know what real love is and are able to offer it to others. We also need to be wise and discerning, which is another gift from God. Our world has a warped understanding of love and what someone may consider love isn't really love at all. God doesn't want us to offer a warped, worldly love to others. He wants us to offer His love to them. That means sometimes love means standing for truth when it would be easier to lie. It means protecting someone when it would be easier to let them go. It means saying no because its the right thing to do or the best thing for that person even when it would be easier to say yes. And it means we will have to sacrifice when it would be easier to just take care of ourselves.

I don't have all the answers to loving as God would have me to, but I want to grow in His love.

Do you see His love growing in your life or are you regressing? How?

How is God helping you to grow in love?