"Love Who?"

"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." John 13:35

Love is the identifying factor in a Christian's life. It is what separates us and identifies us with Christ. Love reflects God's nature and character in our lives. It is also a commandment from Him for us to live by. That being the case, who are we to love?

We are to love God. We are to love our neighbor. "And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself." (Luke 10:27)

We are to love our "brothers"- those in our natural family, and those in our "spiritual" family- the family of God. "And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also." (1 John 4:21)

We are to love our enemies. "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." (Matthew 5:44)

We are to love one another-- each other; whoever that may be. "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." (John 15:12)

So, we are to love God, love our neighbor, love our family, love the family of God, love our enemies and love each other. No one is excluded in our love. We can't pick and choose who we will and won't love.

You may be thinking about a person that you "can't" love; you might know someone who is "hard" to love; you might even feel that a certain person doesn't "deserve" love.. it doesn't matter, it doesn't exempt you from loving them. The key to loving people is to first love God. When we love Him, then His love is what flows from us- not our own- to those we deem unlovable. It has to be His love that we love them with because His love is the only one that is unconditional. If He loved us when we were His enemy, when we were unlovable, when we didn't love Him, when we didn't deserve to be loved, then we should let His love do the same thing through us that it did for us.

Have a great day. We can't pick and choose who we want to love, God's command is to love everyone!

For further reading:
1 Thessalonians 4:9
1 John 4