Love

What a wonderful difference love makes in our world!And it all started with God.He is the root from which all love springs. John says:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:10

Of course, we all realize that God's love is far beyond any love we know of here on earth. Notice, though, what compasrison Jesus uses to convey His love for us. I am always amazed: "As the father has loved me,so have I loved you' " ( John 15:9). I can hardly conceive of the idea that Jesus loves me as God the Father loves Him! Yet it is true, for Jesus said it.

But He goes one step further, asking me to apply this same yardstick to my love. Jesus said:

" My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."

John 15:12

Now, that's difficult! Ask Elizabeth Charles. She was born back in the early 1800s, yet I find that what she wrote is true in the twenty-first century as it was during her lifetime.

It requires far more of the constraining love of Christ to love our cousins and neighbours as members of the heavenly family, than to feel the heart warm to our suffering brethren in Tuscany or Madeira [ far-off places to her].

To love the whole Church is one thing; to love - thatis, to delight in the graces and veil the defects -- of the person who misunderstood me and opposed my plans yesterday,where peculiar infirmities grate on my most sensitive feelings, or whose natural faults are precisely those from which my natural character most revolts, is quite another.

Yes, elizabeth, it's hard to love the one who rubs me the wrong way. Yet, that is loving with the love of God.

On one occasion in the past I knew I would have to spend some time with people who were veryunhappy with me, and I dreaded it. But I couldn't avoid them. All at once God seemed to drop a thought into my heart that totally changed my attitude. Just because they don't love you doesn't mean you can't love them. He seemed to say. There is nothing they can do to stop you from loving them!

Inside I began to laugh to myself. That's right, there's nothing they can do to stop me from loving them!

in fact, when i did see those people, I enjoyed greeting them with a smile. i was totally free to love them whether or not they loved me.

" For Christ's love compels us," says Paul ( 2 Corinthians 5:14). What does His love compel you to do today? How about showing God you love Him by doing something out of the ordinary for somebody who needs encouraging -- maybe even someone one you don't loke. That's loving as Jesus loved you.