Sweet Lovin'- Why Do We Love

Valentine's Day is about love.
Sharing a day of love with someone special.
But do you know why we love? How we love?

"We love because He first loved us."

1 John 4:19

We love because He loves us.

God instructs us to love others.  We are to love others as much as we love ourselves. He doesn't say only love your spouse or your children, but everyone.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a]  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself."

Matthew 22:36-39

His first greatest instruction to us is to love Him with all of ourselves; our hearts, our souls and our minds.  Love Him in all aspects, with every ounce of our being.  And the SECOND greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Here, He is saying that your neighbor is everyone around you, not just the person next door. 

We are to LOVE them above all else.  Do you love the people you come in contact?  Are you pleasant and loving to the cashier at the grocery store. Are you patient and kind to the person taking your order at a restaurant?  Are you considerate and understanding to your next door neighbor? 

No, we don't have to be best friends with everyone we meet, we don't have to enjoy their company or even choose to be around them.  BUT, we are called to love them.  To show them Christ's love through our actions and words. 

We struggle with this, I know I struggle with this.  Just this week, I wrote an email to a friend confessing my hardened heart and bitter thoughts toward her.  I apologized, asked for forgiveness and waited for her reply.  She was so kind and gracious and so utterly forgiving of me and my selfishness.  I am so grateful for how she reacted because I took a risk of humility and it could have gone another direction. 

I don't confess this to you to give myself a pat on the back, I am just being real.  I stumble and fall, but the Lord quickly nudges me in the right direction and I get back on track.  He is so sweet to work on lil 'ol me. 

I want to encourage you this Valentine's Day weekend, to love others as you love yourself.  Show Christ's love through your actions all the time, where ever you are.  Use your gifts and talents to bless other people. 

I will leave you with 1 Corinthians 13: 4-13

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."