Learning to love has been a battle for me. Mainly because I didn’t know enough about it. It’s hard to genuinely give what you don’t know. Once I learned that God is love and love comes from Him, I was able to display it more genuinely. I had to learn how to love! I mean really love. Before we get too far into this, I’m not talking about love that goes from a woman to a man, but love that goes from brother to sister. Not eros love.
I have learned that I can’t only love those that love me. I must love everybody! Mainly because God first loved me and that’s the way He wants us to be! Not only that but based on Romans 13:8…
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”
Romans 13:8
…we are in debt to our neighbors and the unending balance is love and more love! We are to owe our brothers and sister in Christ love! This does not say that we are in debt to those who have loved us but to all! We have a mandate to love!
I’ll admit, I struggled with loving those who wronged me. I would withdraw any and all connections to them, including my love. Then one day, I heard someone preach about how God still loves me through my ugly truth! So I thought about it. My truth ain’t pretty at all! I’ve hurt people, I’ve talked about people, I’ve misused people, and I’ve even sought revenge on people. And I did all of this because I thought I had a “reason” to. But in reality, what I did to those people, I also did to God! This hurt me more than words could ever describe! I would never call God ugly but I called His child ugly. I would never curse God out but I cursed His child! These things I done thinking that I would be hurting the person but I was only hurting myself and God. So the truth became that I had several issues that were ugly and should not have been in the life of a believer but in all of that, God still loved me! And once I caught the revelation of how He loved me back to life in Him, I was able to love his children better.
Sometimes we still may struggle with it because our flesh will tell us that someone doesn’t deserve our love. But the truth is, it’s not us, it’s Him! He teaches us how to love and give love because He is love! And in doing so, the law is fulfilled! Simply by loving His way! When we share Him and when we display His characteristics, we show His love to others! We must learn love and we must learn how to love!
