Love and people

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  John 15:12
We love because He first loved us.  1 John 4:19

Over and over in the New Testament, we are told to love each other.  To think of others before ourselves.  To encourage each other.  To forgive each other.  It's an impossible task on our own.  Our human tendency is to look out for ourselves...to try to get what we need from other people before we give to them.  It's a desperate situation!  But, there is hope!  God loved us first!  He is love!  And when we allow Him to fill us, there is an abundance of love and encouragement and forgiveness and service to give!

So our first priority is loving God and allowing Him to fill us with His overflowing love.  (My blog post "God is love" is all about that.)  Second priority is loving each other...easier said than done for many reasons.

Sometimes people are hard to love.  They hurt our feelings.  They shut us out.  They run away.  I've discovered that people who respond that way have walls around their hearts.  They have deep hurts that only God can heal.  They have been hurt by people so many times that they are unwilling to let anyone close.  God still calls us to love.  When we are filled with His love, we can love without expectations of love being returned.  We can continue to love and give and forgive and serve because we are confident in God's love for us.

My prayer lately has been that God would show me how to love the people in my life the way they need to be loved.  That He would teach me His way to love.  And that I would be willing and obedient to be used by Him.  He is a good, good Father!  And I am loved by Him!