Most Loving Lord, the word “love” has many meanings in the world today. I often think of love as a feeling toward another person or object. It is hard to control my feelings and sometimes I have a natural dislike toward someone and feel like I cannot fulfill Your command to love my neighbor. But, when I really stop to think about Your command to love, I realize a better way to think of it is to “value” that person … like You did to me. What Your commandment is asking me to do is to value every single person as worthy of love. It’s not easy to do, but it is what Your commandment requires that I do. I am called to value my fellow man just as parents value their child. So really, “true love” has nothing to do with feelings. It has everything to do with my behaviors. If I truly love someone, I will be honest with them and try to be helpful. For someone I value I will make time and show them patience.
Your commandment to love can be difficult to practice because there is a “mismatch” between one giver to another. In a mismatch, I can love someone more than I am loved in return. Much of the love written about in novels or songs deals with a love that is mutual and returned. But Your commandment to love calls me to love others the way You did … even if it is not reciprocated. You showed me the way to love in that You loved the world much more than it ever loved You. Usually, in a mismatch, it is the weaker party who suffers the most. But when love is pure, it’s the other way around. The person with the greater love suffers the most when it is not returned. I only have to look to You to see my example of how this works. You loved so much that a mismatch existed which cost You Your life. Your command is to love others with all my heart and You will love me regardless of whether they return it or not.
You have made it clear that You are love and everyone who has been born of God know You and the Father. This is how Your love for me is confirmed … You were sent by Your Father to die for my sins so that I could have everlasting life. You fulfilled Your act of love now I must fulfill mine. I must choose to make You the Lord of my life. Because You loved me, if I am to be an image of You, I ought to love others as You love me. I am content in the knowledge that You live in me and it is Your love which makes me complete. Now I must act on that fact. Boiled down to its simplest form, love is nothing more than my choice to be more like You. Because of Your love I no longer need to fear because there is no fear in love. The reason I love You is because You loved me first and if I love You I must reach out and love others. I promise to strive to be more like You through loving more. And it’s in Jesus’ name I pray. AMEN!!
I John 4: 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.