Love For Others

Wednesday, April 26

Love for Others   

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.1 Peter 1:22

Loving God is vertical love. Loving others is horizontal love. Therefore the believers’ love is both vertical and horizontal. Jesus showed His disciples how these two loves are intertwined in practical ways. It begins with love for God (vertical). Love for God starts in us by our “obeying the truth” of the Gospel. We love Him only because “he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

The love for others here on earth (horizontal love) is much harder. Someone once described it as two porcupines needing warmth from each other on a cold night–“They needed each other; even though they needled each other.” Funny but true and most of us will experience this. We need the love and protection of others, yet that same love and protection can sometimes cut us to the core. Nevertheless, Peter calls us to a love that is sincere (genuine, without hypocrisy), deep (fervent, constant), and from the heart (the center of our emotions, desires, and will). Why? Because God is love and if we accept His love we MUST show this love to others.

Maybe today there is another believer who has not received a sincere, deep, and heartfelt love from you. In fact, maybe they have experienced the opposite. So you really want to follow Jesus? You know what you have to do. When we sacrifice who we are, we can become who God wants us to be. This is hard and that is why we are not asked to do it in our flesh but pray and allow the Spirit of God to breathe on you as you show some love.

Not by might, not by power but by His Spirit!