Love is in the Air

Chris and I have had the privilege or working with our high school students since this past August. We both absolutely love it. We have an amazing group of students and I love hearing their insight on life. We also had the privilege of going to our very first Resurrection as chaperones. For those of you who don’t know, Resurrection is a ministry that offers a weekend retreat for 6^th-12^th graders in Gatlinburg, TN. It is a good time for spiritual renewal for all parties involved.

The theme of our weekend was Love. The pastor, Andy Nixon, really encouraged us to love like Jesus. He shared great stories of love and hope. The band that led worship, The City Harmonic, was phenomenal. The music really bestowed upon us a mountaintop experience. The lyrics to all of the songs are so deeply entrenched with Scripture. The presence of God was very alive this past weekend and will most definitely remain a memorable and life changing experience for all of us.

The theme of love has really been impressed in my heart for the past year or so now. If you read my blog, you might remember me writing about it from time to time. I personally have felt the Holy Spirit convicting me to love on a deeper level for quite some time.

Well, fast forward to this Wednesday’s lesson with our high school group. We are studying the book of James. Tonight we focused on loving without favoritism. We dove into some Scripture that really explained what love is, how we do it, and why we do it. We challenged the group tonight to really pray about how they might be able to show love to someone they might not normally want to love.

One of my favorite passages of the Bible comes from Romans 12:9-10.

“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

I did a quick search and I found the phrase “love your neighbor” is mentioned 11 times in my translation of the Bible. (Matthew 19:19, Matthew 22:39, Matthew 5:43, Mark 12:31, Galatians 5:14, Leviticus 19:18, Mark 12:33, Luke 10:27, James 2:8, Romans 13:8, and Romans 13:9)

I don’t know about you…but I’m going to deduce that it is a pretty BIG deal to love our neighbors.

Notice the Bible doesn’t say any of the following: Love your neighbor if they are rich. Love your neighbor if they think just like you. Love your neighbor if they drive a nice car. Love your neighbor if they are nice to you. Love your neighbor if they don’t get on your nerves. Love your neighbor if they live the exact same lifestyle as you. Love your neighbor if they love God.

It just says to love your neighbor. That’s it. No exclusions.

I don’t know about you, but that is pretty convicting. It is really easy to love the people who think just like me. It is really easy to love the people that I enjoy being around. It is easy to love the people who don’t challenge me. That kind of puts me in a really vulnerable position and I don’t always like to be vulnerable.

Romans 12:9-10 actually says not to pretend to love, but to love genuinely and to actually take delight in honoring each other. Seriously, I can’t pretend? I have to enjoy this love stuff? I have to take actual delight in it?

Wow, God. Just wow.

How is anyone to ever come to know the love of Jesus if we don’t mirror the heart of God in our actions?

That is powerful stuff people. This love stuff…it’s hard. Really hard. It isn’t easy. But we are commanded to do it. And by doing so, we are showing others just a small glimpse of the love Jesus has to offer.

I’m going to end on this challenge. We asked our high school students to actually show love to an unlovable (in their eyes) person this week. I’m going to ask you to do the same. I’m going to ask myself to do the same. I’m honestly not around tons of people as a stay at home mom, but I’m praying that God will put that person in my path and I will be able to show him or her a tiny glimpse of God’s love. It may be a co-worker, family member, fellow student, roommate, but we all have a person that we can love this week. I’m asking you to be bold. Do what you are called to do as a fellow believer and make a difference by putting yourself out there and loving. Let’s see what kind of difference we can make for the Kingdom of God. Maybe your act of love will be the example a person needs to know that the one true God loves him. This has the potential to be huge, if we all just take the time to show a little bit of God’s love and grace that He so generously pours onto us. 

-Peace out. Go love someone unlovable this week.