1 John 4:20
We all want to say "yes, I love God with my whole heart," but do we really? John says here that we can say we love God until we are blue in the face, but if we do not love our fellow Christian, then we are a liar. "Well bless God I love all my Christian brothers and sisters," which is what most of our first responses are when we hear this, but when it gets right down to the definition of love...the Godly definition of love, do we really? The Godly definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says love is patient, kind, not rude, thinks the best of people, not envious, not selfish, not easily angered. Now if we looked how we treat our Christian brothers and sisters, can we really say that we truly love these people? Can we really say to our Christian brother "even though you just made me angry, I'm going to love you and forgive you" or "even though I heard something really bad about you, I'm going to believe the best of you?" I'm not saying all this to get you down, I'm saying this so we can be truthful with ourselves and with our love toward God. The goal is to love God with our whole being (Mark 12:30), but I don't know of anyone who has achieved this except for Jesus. How do I know this? Look at the way you and I treat people! Do we treat people in Godly love as 1 Corinthians 13 says, or do we treat people bad because "I didn't get my way," or "I didn't get what I wanted," or "you got what I should've had," etc etc etc. How do we change? We spend time with God, we get to know Him more and more. And as we get to know Him more and more, we will want to spend more time with Him. As we do, we start showing His love to those around us. Yes, we can try to correct our behavior, and I would encourage that, but a true change comes from getting closer to God!
Take Away: As you get closer and closer to God, your behavior will start exhibiting His love toward the people around you.
Worship Song of the Week...
Touch the Sky by Hillsong
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