The Love Key

At church yesterday the passages were centered on our need to love one another. Jesus even said love your enemies. Love clearly is the center of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think even when confronted with the requirement to love our enemies we reduce love to a simple warm and fuzzy feeling. We see the challenge as living out a simple human challenge. I tried for years to love better. I tried to open my heart to others more readily and I did it when it was easy. The frustration came when the others did something that I didn't like or that hurt me. In those moments my protective shell would go up and I would hold back or refuse to love at all. Jesus does not mean this kind of love. To love the unloveable is the work of God. He loves me and believe me at times I am unloveable. At times I disappoint him and fail to live up to the hope he has in us. It is this love he wants us to show the world, but we must first recognize the source of this love and the promise of its constant supply.

When love is tough that is when I must rely on the Holy Spirit that he has given. God lives in me and will love through me if I turn over my will to this indwelling God. This love is agape love. Love without strings attached. Not love that gives tit for tat, but love that always seeks the good for others. I wish I had loved my Marsha like that in our early years. So much of life and parenting would have been easier and better. My example to my family would have helped greatly in raising children. My family would have avoided many difficult struggles. 

Marsha and I came to realize some of the power of this love as our life together went on. What a great gift our life has been together since we learned not only to love with our human hearts, but also with God's indwelling spirit. 

Would God command us to do the impossible? No!! He gives us the power that makes it all possible. Love one another as I have loved you. No greater loves exists than to lay down your life for a friend. You are my friends if you do what I command. Submit your life to him. Let His love flow through you.