Tag: <span>loving others</span>


“By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35

I have made many important discoveries and learned many valuable lessons in the course of my nearly 80 years.

I could write about my days of agnosticism when as a happy pagan I finally heard the Good News for the first time and fell in love with Jesus Christ. I could have told about the days when I first experienced the reality of the person of the Holy Spirit. I could share my discovery of how to introduce others to Christ as a way of life, or my realization that everybody hungers for God, even so-called atheists, because God created us that way. (Romans 1:19, 20)

However, having considered all of these possibilities, [the greatest lesson I ever learned is how to] love people who sometimes are difficult to love.

Why is this lesson important to me? Because God places a very strong emphasis on love in His Word. In fact, our Lord teaches us to

love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind’ and to “love your neighbor as yourself.

The Holy Spirit spoke through the Apostle Paul, that no matter what else we might accomplish in life, regardless of what we may contribute that is good and commendable, apart from love, it is of no value whatsoever.

In one instance, I was having difficulty loving a fellow staff member of Campus Crusade for Christ. But the Lord reminded me of 1 Peter 5:7,

Let him have all your worries and cares, for He is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you” (TLB).

When I claimed God’s love for the man, by faith, my concern lifted. This man and I met later that afternoon and had the most wonderful time of prayer and fellowship we had ever experienced together. Loving with God’s love, by faith, had changed our relationship.

Perhaps you have been in a similar situation and wondered, “How can I really love that person?” I encourage you to make a list of those whom you don’t like and begin to love them by faith. Confess any wrong attitudes you may have about them. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with Christ’s love for each of them. Then seek to meet with them as you draw upon God’s limitless, inexhaustible, overwhelming love for them by faith. You will discover, as I have, that we can never run out of opportunities to love by faith.

Bible Reading: Hebrews 11:6

Thought: Commit to examining your relationships, asking the Lord who you need to express His love for. Take time to pray for that person, and your own attitude about them. Then contact them, and let them know you are praying for them.

by Dr. Bill Bright
Used by Permission

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thoughts by Bill Bright Thoughts by Men

Cold Hearted. Has your love for others faded?

Is your love growing softer, brighter and more visible? Or is it becoming more discriminating, more calculating, less vulnerable and less available? This is a very important issue, for your Christianity is only as real as your love. A measurable decrease in your ability to love is evidence that a stronghold of cold love is developing within you.

Jesus warned of our era. He said, “Many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold” (Matthew 24:10-12). So, let us honestly ask the Lord to examine us: Is our love hot or cold? Someone’s thoughtlessness may have wounded us deeply, but instead of forgiving the wound or going to them and discussing it according to Matthew 18, we go to others with our complaint. The wound then begins to germinate into a root of bitterness, and many are being defiled (Hebrews 12:15). What is growing in us is not love but bitterness, which is unfulfilled revenge.

Again, Jesus warned “that stumbling blocks [would] come” (Matthew 18:7). There will be times when even good people have bad days; there will never be a time when “stumbling blocks” cease to be found upon your path. Remember also, people do not stumble over boulders but over stones — little things. When you have stumbled over something, you’ve stopped walking.

Have you stumbled over someone’s weakness or sin lately? Have you gotten back up and continued loving as you did before, or has that fall caused you to withdraw from walking in love? To preserve the quality of your love, you must forgive those who have caused you to stumble. Depending on the issue itself, it may be that you legitimately cannot trust them, but you do not have a reason to stop loving.

Every time you refuse to forgive or fail to overlook a weakness in another, your heart not only hardens toward them, it hardens toward God. You may still think you are open to God, but the Scriptures are clear: “The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). You may not like what someone has done, but you do not have an option to stop loving them.

What do I mean by love? First, I do not merely mean “tough love.” I mean gentle, affectionate, sensitive, open, persistent love. God will be tough when He needs to be, and we will be firm when He tells us to be, but beneath our firmness must be an underground river of love waiting to spring into action. When I have love for someone, I have predetermined that I am going to stand with them, regardless of what they are going through. I am committed.

We each need people who love us, who are committed to us in spite of our imperfections. The fullness of Christ will not come without Christians standing with each other in love. We are not talking about salvation but growing in salvation until we care for each other, even as Christ has committed Himself to us.

The goal of pulling down the stronghold of cold love is to see our hearts restored to the heart of Christ. You will be challenged in this, but if you persist, you will discover the height and depth and breadth of Christ’s love. You will become “a body filled and flooded with God Himself” (Ephesian 3:19 Amp).

By Francis Frangipane
Used by Permission

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