"Love means doing what God has commanded us, He has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning." (2 John 1:6 NLT)
The verse of the day caught my attention. The New Living Translation puts things plainly: leaving no room for misinterpretation.
Love = living out God’s commands.
His command = loving others.
This command is unchanging. And still, we are so bad at it. Why?
We lose sight of it. Why?
We excuse ourselves out of it. Why?
It’s easy to love God: He has done so much for us.
It’s hard to love people: they’ve done so much to us.
‘For’ and ‘to’ are tiny yet powerful prepositions. God is good and people are difficult. Ann Voskamp reminds us of the chief offender in our story.
“People aren’t being difficult. They are having difficulty.”
(Ann Voskamp)
In her Broken Way book, Ann goes on to suggest that sometimes the greatest difficulty is within the four chambers of our own heart. It’s hard to reconcile with the reality that we may very well be the villain in someone else’s story. Lord-willing, it’s unintentional, but it certainly does happen.
A huge contribution to our villainous nature is our departure from this commandment. It’s crazy because it’s the greatest one: repeated verbatim in three gospels and supported throughout both testaments.
“He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength and with all your mind;’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” (Luke 10:27 NIV)
In the education world, we call this text-evidence and it’s irrefutable. As believers, when we discover our heart out of sync with scripture, the right response is repentance and request. We confess our shortfall and petition for divine assistance.
Lord, we recognize the gap between Your command and our condition. We are left wanting. Please forgive us for all the ways we fall short in loving You and loving others. We long to live out Your Kingdom values, yet we are lax in our adherence to Your instruction. Fill us with Your Spirit, carry us along in Your commandments. Renew our love for You and Your people. Amen.