“Love each other in the same way that I love you.” John 15:12 NLT
“Sometimes people are trying to pour love out of an empty pitcher.”
My thoughts today are about “living a lifestyle of loving.”
I think loving is pretty natural to a person in the sense of thinking well of others and treating them accordingly. Could there be anyone who has not loved someone at some time? Such a person would be hard for me to imagine. When Jesus says, “Love each other in the same way that I love you,” it sounds so natural and simple. You want to love and be loved; who doesn’t?
How then can something that seems so simple be so difficult to do consistently? Consider the encouragement that Jesus gives – “in the same way that I love you.” Do you read that as a human impossibility? That’s a mistake easily made and makes your efforts a more daunting task. What would change if instead of struggling with that as an impossible standard, you allowed God’s love to become the unfailing source from which you love?
Sometimes people are trying to pour love out of an empty pitcher. The problem could be seen as simple as filling the pitcher before you attempt to fill something from it. The more you allow God’s love to fill and heal your heart daily, the more readily you will find yourself able to pour love into others’ lives without such great, and often failing, effort. Love is not a warm, fuzzy feeling of emotion.
Love is the faithful expression of your will in obedience to God’s command, accomplished in God’s enabling ability. Here’s what I have come to believe with conviction: love to be authentic must be practical and observable. “Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence . . And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.” 1 John 3:18-19/23 NIV. Read that again slowly. Did you notice that loving one another is as clearly commanded as trusting in the name of Jesus?
If your expression of love is not a practical supply of another’s need and able to be known and experienced by them, it may be well intentioned benevolence but it is something less than love. Love is not about giving what you want to give when you want to do so, but about providing what another needs to receive when they most need it. It is always generous and sacrificial, and usually inconvenient – but oh so satisfying to the one who receives it and the one who gives it.
Let me share another’s practical suggestions of how to live a lifestyle of loving: “people are insecure – give them confidence; People need to feel special – compliment them; people look for a better tomorrow – give them hope; people need to be understood – listen to them; people need examples – be one!“ Now those are simple, everyday things that you can do – giving people the practical love that Jesus gives you.
My prayer for you today is: love as a lifestyle, not an emotion or occasional action.