Love was in God’s heart long before this world was made, and His love lasts forever. Perhaps the greatest facet of His love is His love for us. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5 – ESV). What a wonderful thought that the eternal love of our heavenly Father may dwell in our hearts.
After we have experienced God’s love, why do we sometimes find it difficult to love our Christian brothers? I recently read of a Christian woman who faced this dilemma when she was called to live in close proximity with another Christian sister she found hard to love. She was more than just a little bothered that she did not like her, much less love her. She recalled an old saying that if someone does not like another person, one should try to do him a kindness. She showed this sister many kindnesses, but her feelings did not change. Finally, realizing that Jesus’ command that we love one another was against her, she got down on her knees and asked God to help her love this sister.
Months later, she came to the sudden realization that she now liked and even loved that sister very much. After praying, she had no recollection of her sister “changing” nor anxiousness about her own lack of love; God had simply given her a new heart (from The Standard, 1952). We need not try to manufacture feelings of love nor demand that God give us those feelings. We can simply appeal to God to help us love people we find hard to love.
As we learn to love our Christian brothers better, we will also grow to love a world of people we have never known. C.S. Lewis illustrates the difference between man’s love and God’s love: “The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he ‘likes’ them: the Christian, trying to treat everyone kindly, finds him liking more and more people as he goes on – including people he could not even imagine himself liking at the beginning.” Another way that man’s love falls short is by pursuing a love in which God is wholly absent. We see all around us a world that shouts “Love is God,” but this love is a poor imitation; it places conditions on who should be loved and who should not be loved among other selfish ideas. We should be wary of this selective “love” which is so attractively portrayed in modern movies and the like. Better examples of true love can be found in the biographies and lives of faithful Christian men and women who gave themselves in service to people whom they had never met before.
One of the best ways to cultivate a spirit of love for others is to know God’s love more. Paul prays for the church at Ephesus, that “He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being … that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may… know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:16-19 – ESV). His love is beyond knowledge and cannot be attained by any vast amount of study. However, we can come to Him as an “empty vessel” and ask to be filled with His love.
Showing God’s love to others need not be complicated nor considered unattainable. Below is a wonderful poem by a woman who speaks of the simple ways that we may show love to others.
Solace
If I have helped to lead a wayward boy; if I have brought the light of simple joy
To any face, or touched its hollows deep; if I have rocked a child to sleep;
If I have found an unmarked grave and dropped a pansy there, and gave
Of my few tears. If I have penned a line that caused a nobler thought than mine
To grow in someone’s heart; if I have ever done my part;
If I have felt the shepherd’s rod, or helped lead a soul to God;
If I have eased the pain of anyone, I have not lived in vain.
—Mabel Livingston
Let us cultivate a spirit of love and kindness for our wives and children, for our Christian brothers and sisters, and to a wide world in need of the Savior. May God’s love be poured into our hearts as we keep this blessed Sabbath day and may the overflow of God’s love bring others to know His love and unify believers who are showing His love to this world.
