Yesterday while reading one of my favorite chapters of the Bible, having been sharing with some friends about God’s loving character, a small fragment stood out in the reading.
As we study God’s word, the Lord asks us to love one another as we love ourselves.
However, that seems impossible.
How exactly can we get to do such a thing?
How to love others?
Today, I would like to share with you what I believe to be the fundamental pillar of that response.
To do so, I invite you to read the same little bible text that stood out in my reading yesterday in a special way:
He who does not love has not known God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8
The answer to the question, “how can we love others?” is deeply rooted in knowing God for whom He really is.
To love others, we need to truly know God.
When we come to know God’s true character, as revealed in Jesus Christ, we realize that God is love.
That intimate, personal, and experiential full realization of the infinite, deep, and immense love of God in our lives is a turning point from which everything changes for us.
Dear reader, in the words of a famous preacher, “knowing Jesus is everything”.
Knowing the true character of God in Jesus is what changes our outlook on life and our personal relationships with others.
The words of Jesus expressed to his disciples resonate in my mind and come to life with a special meaning.
Jesus told them:
So now I give you a new commandment: love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you must love one another.
John 13:34
Jesus said love one another, “Just as I have loved you.”
Instead of just seeing an arbitrary ordinance here, I see an invitation to experience in my life the love of Jesus.
Otherwise, how can I love as He has loved me if I don’t feel loved by Him?
Feeling and knowing oneself loved by God in Jesus is perhaps the most important experience of the Christian life.
From this experience flow naturally obedience, faith, hope, and so many other indispensable fruits.
Many things are said about God today, things that are not even true.
You and I have come to have ideas about God’s way of being that do not correspond to reality.
Ideas like that He is impatient, intolerant, demanding, ready to judge, punish, and reprimand.
These misconception separates us from Him because they put up an absurd barrier that prevents us from receiving His embrace, his forgiveness, his grace.
Today I would like to invite you, if applicable, to change your lenses and begin to see God in the right way, so that you can relate to Him in the right way.
In doing so, you will live the most wonderful life experience you could ever experience.
I speak to you from experience, life is incomplete when we do not understand the infinite, deep and unconditional love of God and his acceptance of us.
Only by knowing God for whom He really is, a God of infinite love, can we love others.
Only when we know and feel loved by Jesus, can we come to love others as He has loved us.
I hope these words have been a blessing to your life.
And what do you think? Would you like to love others? Do you know that God of love? Would you like to experience his love in your life? Share it in the comments.
A hug, God bless you.
