Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Love is not one of those words to be thrown about without careful thought like is often done today. We hear the statement, ‘I love you’ so much that it is beginning to lose its essence.
Love as just a feeling is not what lasts because feelings are fickle.
Love is a decision to stick with a person no matter what.
1 John 3:18 says: Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. A decision is backed by action so when God loved us and man fell, He just couldn’t sit back and do nothing. He had to prove His love by sending Jesus to die for our sins. And guess what? Because God’s love was not based on feeling, He didn’t require us to be good people first, before making the sacrifice. When your love for someone is based on a feeling, you do good to them because they have been great to you or have an admirable quality. But in an instance where love is a decision, Jesus can instruct us to do good to those that persecute us. That is a sacrifice because it doesn’t come naturally to us.
I have come to the conclusion that if a person sees the negative or unpleasant aspects of another’s life and still treats them well, that is true love. And it’s based on the scripture above. God didn’t wait for us to accept Him before having a plan to save us. In spite of the evil we’ve done, his love was intact. In 1 John 4:8, we know that God is love. So if God is love, we can only walk in this kind of love when we relate with Him then we’d not look at people through the lenses of the natural.
Also, walking in this love is a sign of wisdom and maturity because being able to love someone despite their glaring flaws is phenomenal. Usually, people run when challenges come up in friendships or relationships because not everyone is selfless enough to deal with another person’s issues. True love is seen in difficult times and negative situations. So don’t just be moved by word of mouth but actions will tell. John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Love is a doing word.
When we show love to people who don’t think they deserve it, it’s easier to win them over but living the opposite of that can make someone decide they’d never be a Christian because of your attitude. It’s more lasting to win someone by attitude than just talk and that’s why when we love just like God – irrespective of flaws – we give people room to reflect on the love we’ve shown them and they decide to ask us how and why we love them. Then from there, we can point them to Christ who is the author of that love.
The Word In Clarity 