The Month of LOVE
We all know someone who exhausts our energy. They’re draining. They’re needy. It’s hard work investing our time into them as they give you no indication that your sacrifice and investment into their life will even pay off or is even making a difference at all. That’s when it can be extremely hard to keep trying or keep going on. Patience grows thin. You wonder if it’s all worth it.
Love is easy when you love the lovely.
Loving people make it easy to let your love flow.
The challenge arises when people are unlovely, hard, abrasive, combative, and cantankerous.
Whether you love them or like them or not it's often laborious to demonstrate the love of God when you're dealing with difficult family, friends, coworkers, church family, etc. That's why we must put our feelings aside and recognize the opportunity. What opportunity? It’s the opportunity to exemplify the love of God. Scripture reminds us that our labor is never in vain as we invest the agape LOVE of God into others. (1 Corinthians 15:58) The people who need love the MOST are typically the unlovely. The hard. The bitter. The broken. The rejected. Yes it requires extra effort. No it may not be convenient but God will give you grace to love when you ask Him to help you. That's what being a light on darkness is about. The darkness may not be yours but someone else's. Maybe they're lost and can't find their way. Or they're in a hopeless situation and don't know how to navigate out of it. The last thing they need is another religious person hounding them about their errors. No-one wants to be brow beaten by a Bible bearing believer. Instead be a reprieve or place of rest for away soul.
Demonstrate the love of God as His living epistle read of men. Remember you may be the only Bible someone ever reads or the only church that they come in contact with. Show compassion. Speak the truth in love. Provide wisdom when asked your opinion about the matter. Don't point the figure and turn off the opportunity to minister to an open heart. Change your perspective about the hard to love people and see how much easier it is to allow God's love to freely flow through you. You'll have a better chance of impacting their lives through love as oppose to ridicule. So instead of picking up the phone to discuss their problems with your friend, repurpose that time to Pray for them instead! Or call. and go out of your way to help them resolve a matter. You are the hands and feet of God in the earth. Let Him use you for His glory!
Difficult people need love too.
Luke 6:32 ESV
“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
Matthew 5:43-48 ESV
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the un