Love is a major thing in our human life. You turn on the radio, it’s all about love songs. You watch TV, characters are always falling in love. You read tabloids, it’s always about someone’s love life, love interest, love is always in the air. However, all the world tells us is that love is a feeling. When you don’t feel love, you can get out of the relationship. A person’s love can change to hate etc. The truth is, love is an action. Because it’s an action, love that is so good and simple in the movies and songs, is actually not an easy thing to carry out in real life.
A famous verse in the Bible says this, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” This means love isn’t something that perishes, that disappears, like a feeling. Love remains forever, and it’s greater than hope and faith. Someone once shared with me that faith is the most important, and it struck me that actually, love is the most important. It’s easier to have faith, to believe in something. Many people can say they believe in God, but not many can say they believe in God AND love their enemy. Don’t even mention enemy, it’s not even easy to love that person sitting next to us at work, or even that person sitting across us at church. I think that is why God put great importance in Love. He repetitively told us to Love our Neighbour as ourselves, putting it on par importance as loving God. So we can’t say, I’m a Christian, I love God with all my heart, but I can’t stand that person. It’s a most human reaction to NOT love, but our actions can turn things around. Love being an action, we can do the action before we feel the love.
So how do we put love into action? Simple, by being kind to someone, by being patient with them, by not boasting and being proud about ourselves, by honoring others and that is respecting them, by not just seeking our own good, by not getting easily angry, and by not keeping a record of wrongs done to us. Also if you love, you will never be happy over the downfall of another, instead you will always want to protect and hope for their best. Wow, a huge list! I must admit I have failed in every area mentioned above and did not show love instead. Sometimes I get easily irritated by people. Here’s a story from my sister, which I believe is love in action. My sister has a colleague that everyone hates in the workplace. Everyone is always putting a knife into her back, gossiping about her. My sister admitted to not really liking this colleague either, but she decided not to be like everyone else, instead she befriended this girl and sometimes even bring her out for lunch. She became this girl’s only friend in the office. I am quite sure this is love, and that this girl appreciated my sister for that. Are you ready to love? However at the end of the day, I want to stress that our focus is not our behaviour modification, our focus is looking to Christ. When we begin to see His awesome love, there’s no way it won’t affect us to somehow begin to love like He did.
“Father teach me to love people like you love them. Open my eyes to see people for who they really are, the way you see them, and not through my own tainted view of them. Lead me to show love wherever I can, most of all to show the love of Christ so that you alone can be magnified. Thank you Lord. In Jesus’ name.”