Day 32: What is True Love?
These past couple of weeks have plagued me (in a good way) with questions of how to genuinely love. It’s easy to say that we love others, but is it really easy to do it? If I say I love my neighbor or my fellow colleague or friend, what does that actually look like? What does it mean to love in ways that goes beyond just lip service?
I appreciate that Scripture guides us. God gives us tangible ways to love especially through the life Jesus led. Our first and foremost reason for love is because God loves us first. He demonstrates that love for through Jesus. It’s Jesus that is our compass for modeling love.
This world has presented us with the most pressing issues of our day. Racism, sexism, xenophobia, death and are still very alive. Surely God had known what we would be dealing with! Surely he would’ve known the depravity of sin in 2018. Yet Scripture admonishes us to live in Love. Jesus says the following words:
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18, ESV)
Scriptures encourage us not only to love in name, but to do so through our actions. It seems to me that love and justice go hand-in-hand. Loving and addressing someone’s needs go hand-in-hand as well. To love, inherently, asks us to give of ourselves, and care for another human being in a way that only God can equip us to.
As you meditate on these verses, may I suggest that you start from a place of recalling the undeserved love you have received that propels all of us to humbly love even the most difficult of people.
Questions to Consider
In what ways do you see love and justice intertwined? How can you, in your daily life, connect love in your mind to love through your deeds? Who is God calling you to deepen your love for? Especially folks who make you uncomfortable?
By Dr. Nina Hanson, Director of Multicultural Life