Empowered To Love
Loving others is easy… right?
But what happens when they hurt you…uh oh!
I have preached and preached about love for as long as I can remember, but the moment someone injured me in some way—it was as if everything I knew about love would go dangling out of the window ready to be gone with the wind lol! I would have to intentionally grab a hold of it, “bring it in”, and choose to move forward.
Reality is, we perceive some injuries to be too deep to recover fully from. Therefore, pursuing love isn’t quite ideal for us at times. When we get a new wound, we often reflect on similar injuries from our past and the people that played a part in that. This is true for any type of injury…it causes stuff to rise to the surface—old feelings, emotions, and thoughts.
Whether it be mistreatment in a relationship, a friend or relative turning their back on you, or a person on your job throwing you under the bus, it will impact you in a way that may cripple the way you choose to love others. Have you ever unconsciously compiled a list of people you love under your own conditions? Placed any walls up lately? Ouch…
If loving you is….right, then I must do so from a healthy place. Only Jesus can help us with that…
My love walk had gone through a really rough patch a few years ago. There was a time when I felt like I just couldn’t trust people. In my mind, everyone was either selfish, prideful, or just plain crazy! I felt trapped. My desire to overly extend love to others had diminished. I started looking deeper into the life of Christ; more specifically how He handled difficult people or “crazies” Haha. In Luke 6:36, after teaching about loving your enemies, He simply says “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”. My quiet time shifted from ‘Lord, why…’ and ‘I just don’t understand how they…’ to –“Father, teach me to be merciful.”
In C.S. Lewis’ writing “Mere Christianity” there is a chapter entitled “Charity”. He begins by saying that in a modern sense, most people only associate charity with giving to the poor. Yet the truth is, it has a much wider meaning. Charity is love in a Christian sense and it is beyond feeling and emotion. He goes on to say it is a state of will that is different from liking or affection.
When we like someone or already have affection for someone, it is much easier to be charitable toward them. The challenge comes when we do not like someone, but Lewis shares with us that we should still act as if we did. After all, our love is a state of will not feelings.
Lewis’ charge to “act as if we did” reminds me of Romans 12:10 'Love one another WITH brotherly affection…’
Listennnnn, I know what you’re thinking. This is not easy. People are plain crazy! Haha. However, this is how we love people like Jesus does. Going beyond our thoughts and feelings in order to contribute brotherly affection. Jesus is the standard right? Through Him we are empowered to love! When God’s Word charges us to love, it never says “only love if…”. It simply says LOVE.
Sometimes our love is so conditional…
“The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he likes them. The Christian, trying to treat everyone kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on—including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.”—C.S. Lewis
When we find it hard to embrace others, it’s important to remember a few things…
1. Pursue Love
Have you ever told yourself “I’m just going to love them from a distance” ? Yep, me too. I have learned that doing this does not position me to come to love them more or dislike them any less. We are to simply pursue love even if our feelings and emotions do not want to. Also, remember it is a commandment. We are known as His disciples by us loving others… John 13:34-35
2. Practice Peace
Start by changing your language and thoughts about them. Be intentional about praying for those who have hurt you. Pursuing love and peace doesn’t mean going back into an unhealthy abusive relationship. It means getting to a place where you have healthy thoughts and interactions with those who have wounded you in some way. Responding from a place of peace requires constant communion with Christ. He said He will keep in perfect peace those whose mind is stayed on Him…Isaiah 26:3
3. Give Grace
It’s important to remember that we are not perfect ourselves and we need the help of the Holy Spirit to live every single day. Everyone does. So give people grace, because you once needed it and will surely need it again.
Is there someone you need to forgive today? Is there someone in your life that you need to show a little more love to? Is your love toward a certain person or people group “conditional”? In the midst of everything happening in the world today, we ought not make our love conditional. Be empowered to pursue love from a pure place in Christ—no matter the injury.
#chooselove #empoweredtolove #pursuelove #practicepeace #givegrace
I started this blog to empower you to be the best version of yourself. That means pushing past and overcoming things that may be suppressing your best YOU. There will be some ugly truths we talk about. Only because I have walked through these things myself. I hope to remind you of the greatness that lives within you and to empower you to be who you are ultimately called to be to impact this world! Thanks for reading!
“The Way of Love
’If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’”