Choose Love (31 page)

A ploy of the enemy is to divide believers and pit them against one another. Imagine if we in the body of Christ were so united that we could pray in unity for whatever God put on our hearts. Think of what could be accomplished.

Love Other Believers as Jesus Loves Us

Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you,
that you love one another; as I have loved you
…By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). That means our love for other believers will be the main characteristic in us that demonstrates who it is we belong to and who we love and serve. It will be distinctive and defining when we consistently demonstrate the love of Jesus to one another.

The love of Jesus was
sacrificial
and
unconditional
and
unfailing
and not like any other love. His love in us causes us to resolve our differences and stop separating ourselves from other believers because of nitpicky issues, prickly criticism, and gossipy defamation of character that are the opposite of Christ’s love for us.

Jesus wants us to bear fruit that lasts. Part of that is becoming His disciple and assisting in bringing other people to a knowledge of Him as their Savior.

We believers are all members of the body of Christ. What affects one affects us all. We all need one another.
The key is to love others
as He loves us
. Love like that is not just a chance feeling. It’s a choice we make that causes us to act out of love. That kind of love is something you sense in a person even if they don’t do anything specifically for you. It is the way they
are
.

People will know that we are His by our love for one another
. When we show love for one another by being in unity—not in allegiance to a man, but in our common allegiance to Jesus—this will draw more people to Him than anything else. This love for one another and unity of spirit require humility. That means we are not only humble before God, but humble with one another.

Our love and humility are shown in the words we speak.
What we speak has to line up with what we have in our heart. When we show our love for God and for others with our words, that blesses God.
Humility is recognizing how poor we are without the Lord and how clearly pathetic our lives would be without Him
.

Paul told the Corinthians how they were to live as believers. “I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
you all speak the same thing
, and that
there be no divisions among you
, but that
you be perfectly joined together
in the
same mind
and in the
same judgment
” (1 Corinthians 1:10).

Does that mean we all agree on everything and every detail of our lives? No, it means we agree on whom we serve as Lord and what He requires of us.

David said, “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). One of the ways we dwell in unity is to work things out together—to seek the Lord and the counsel of other strong and knowledgeable believers.

Part of loving others is being able to drop a matter. Let it go. Cut your losses and move on. We all have to do that at one time or another. Prayer is the greatest unifier of all. What could happen if we believers started praying for one another in different denominations, different cultures, and different areas so that church pride, denomination pride, and cultural and racial pride no longer existed?
Think what God could do in His people if all “we’re right and everyone else is wrong” pride were eliminated.

David was set upon by false accusers who deceitfully attacked him with words of hatred. The worst part was that these were people he had loved, and they rewarded him with evil for good. But what did David do in the face of all that? He prayed. He said, “They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause.
In return for my love they are my accusers, but I give myself to prayer
” (Psalm 109:3-4).

He prayed instead of reacting. He went to God instead of trying to get even.

What a lesson we can learn from that. Because we have the confidence of knowing God loves us, we can say, “The L
ORD
is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?…It is better to trust in the L
ORD
than to put confidence in man” (Psalm 118:6,8). God is on your side and He knows the truth.

One of the most heartbreaking things is when a
believer
hurts you. If you both love God and He loves each of you, how do you reconcile this? You must pray for that person and for yourself. Pray that if you are wrong, God will show you. But if the other person is wrong, pray that God will reveal it to him and he will acknowledge it. The best thing would be to pray together trusting that God knows how to do what it takes to reconcile this breach.

Love Unbelievers the Way God Loves Us

Our love extended toward unbelievers will make it known to them that we don’t just love our own, and that is what makes us unique. We love those who are not like us instead of rejecting them as everyone else tends to do.

The thing that keeps more people from receiving the Lord are believers who speak and act toward them without the love of God in their hearts
.

That is what kept me from receiving the Lord sooner than I did.
It wasn’t until I was faced with the true love of God in believers that the walls came down around my heart. Because of their prayers for me to see the light, the blindness fell from my eyes. Only God’s love breaks down barriers like that. Mere human love cannot.

Pray for yourself to live in a way that the love of God can be seen in you. And pray for unbelievers to see the truth about that. Jesus said, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil” (John 7:7). Many people in the world hate Christians because we
are
believers in Jesus. But we must love them as well. Pray that whatever is obstructing people from seeing the truth about God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice be brought down.

We forfeit all God has for us when we don’t love others. Jesus said people will know us by our love for one another. But do they? Do people know that about you? Do they know that about me? I hope so. I pray so. Let’s pray together that people will know us by our love for one another and also our love for those who don’t know Him.

Jesus said, “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37). That means we can hear God speak to our heart because we have His Spirit of truth in us. As a result, we can be led by God in showing love to others.

Jesus said of us as believers that we will be known by our love—not by our rules and laws. Jesus did not come to judge. He came to save and set free. Our judgment on the unbelieving world has turned them off to the love of Christ because they don’t see it exhibited or extended. That’s a shame. We need to change that perception, one person at a time if not more. Let’s pray we will be known by our love for one another as believers and for our love toward other people who do not know the Lord. Yet!

The Bible says we are to “pursue love” (1 Corinthians 14:1) and let all we do be done with love (1 Corinthians 16:14). We don’t just pursue it and do it for ourselves, but for others. That’s the only way people will know whose we are.

Prayer of Love

L
ORD
, Your Word says that it is good and pleasant for all of us who love You to live together in unity (Psalm 133:1). And that we should love one another, for when we love You and love others, it shows that we truly
know
You (1 John 4:7). Help me to be a uniter and not a divider. Help me to be a peacemaker, a bridge maker, and a unifier.

Teach me to speak words that lift up and bring love and peace—words that edify and cause people to love You more. Enable me to speak only that which is true, righteous, and godly. Keep me from being a negative complainer. Your Word says that godly speech brings a long, good life (Psalm 34:12-13). Help me to speak the truth about what constitutes a long, good life for others. Enable me to communicate Your love to them in every way possible.

I pray I will be known for my love for You and for other people (John 13:35). I pray that even unbelievers will know me by my love expressed to them in kindness and thoughtfulness. I pray they will be attracted to You because of it. Teach me how to “pursue love”—not only to receive it, but to look to You for the opportunities You have opened to me to show it to others (1 Corinthians 14:1). Teach me how to pray to that end so I can extend Your love to those who are dividers. Enable us all to love one another with a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22).

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Words of Love

You, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

G
ALATIANS
5:13-14

Above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

C
OLOSSIANS
3:14

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all.

1 T
HESSALONIANS
3:12

Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

E
PHESIANS
4:1-3

Above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”

1 P
ETER
4:8

19

Isn’t It Selfish to Learn to Love Myself?

M
ost of us are way too hard on ourselves. We beat ourselves up for everything we see that disappoints us. We women, especially, are critical of ourselves. But God doesn’t like that. He wants us to love the person He made us to be. He desires that we appreciate that we are wonderfully made and so we love all that our body, soul, and mind are able to do. He doesn’t want us criticizing ourselves for what we think we cannot do.

I remember hearing a doctor talk about going to a foreign country to help sick children there. Many were deformed because they came from the wombs of malnourished mothers who didn’t have enough to eat when they were pregnant. The next time he went to that country as a missionary, he took surgeons with him who could perform corrective procedures on the little deformed faces of those children. He said they didn’t have mirrors there so they had never really seen themselves and didn’t know what they looked like. They only knew the reaction of others to them. That’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? What would it be like to never have seen our own reflection? Most of us have been looking at ourselves in a mirror since we first saw our parents or siblings do it.

These little children were allowed to see themselves in a mirror before their surgery, and it was disturbing to them. But when they saw themselves after they were healed from their surgery, they were pleased. Their confidence and joy increased. People responded positively to them. They liked what was reflected back to them.

Too often we don’t like what we see because we are critical of what we look like. We’ve compared ourselves to picture-perfect images we’ve seen in the media. But God doesn’t want us to do that. He wants us to see
His
beauty in us. He wants us to see ourselves the way
He
does.

When we receive the Lord and His Spirit is in us, God begins a spiritual surgery that reconstructs and repairs all the disfiguring things that have happened to us and the damage that has occurred because of the destroying effects of sin in our life. When we see the results, we will be pleased. His Spirit in us is beautifying.

Jesus said that we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. He said this is the first commandment (Mark 12:30). “And the second, like it, is this: ‘
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these ” (Mark 12:31). These are the two greatest commandments, yet how many of us do not love ourselves? In fact, we are mean to ourselves when we criticize who we think we are and don’t appreciate who God made us to be.