Over looking love

"The greatest of these is love".  A continual prayer in my life is "God show me how to love others like you love, show me what it means to love this person."  God is all about love, He IS love.   Time and time again God calls us back to this four letter word.  Yet time and time again we judge instead of love, we yell instead of speak the truth in love, we hold on to a grudge, we lack forgiveness, the list goes on and on.  And it is not to condemn us but it is to be aware, that we as Christians, we as human beings need to understand what God means when He calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and not only understand but we need to apply it in our every day lives, in each and every one of our relationships.  

Beyond these things put on love... The greatest of these is love... If you have not love you have nothing... 

Love is the root, from it comes humility, forgiveness, patience, kindness, everything we need to live as Christ calls us comes from love. 

It sounds so simple but it is something I must come back to time and time again, because as a broken human, often times loving others when they hurt me, or offend me is difficult.  But I want to learn! I want to learn to walk in love, I want to learn to love like Jesus loves, to love the broken, because I am no different.

We are all on a journey, God is leading us different places, showing us different things.  We all have our own struggles, our own pasts that play into who we are now, we are all overcoming, and enduring.  God has made us all as unique individuals, we all have unique stories and we are all at different places in our journeys. And sometimes that is hard to remember, it is hard to have grace on someone who struggles differently then you.  It is hard to forgive those who sin differently than you.  But we are all there, we are all in that place where we need love.  

As we grow up in a world with so so much darkness, so much hate, we need to show love! We need to love our enemies, our neighbors, We need to love people to Jesus!  When we love, we can forgive, we can think the best, assume the best, and leave the judging up to God.  When we have love as our foundation we can be patient, we can show grace, we can meet people where they are at with compassion and understanding. Everything we do that is honoring to God and honoring to others stems from love, everything that God calls us too is out of love.  

I believe if we really take time to seek The Lord and ask Him what it means to love the people in our lives, our best friends, spouses, families, co-workers, leaders, staff, strangers, enemies,  we will start to see more fruitful, uplifting, lasting relationships!  

As the Beatles say "All you need is love, love, love is all you need."

"Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another" 1st Peter 4:8