The Gospel when studied gives us such great understanding of God’s love for us. I remember my very first memory verse as a child was John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave us his beloved son. Such great love! We are often reminded that God loves us through his word and as we continue to be taught of his love in the church. I was fairly new to my now home church when my pastor said the mission of the church for new members was to love God, love his people, and make disciples. I have fixated my thoughts this week on what it means to love God and his people. Often times we get so enamored by God’s love, which is great! But we then forget that we are to love him and love his people. How then do we love God and love his people?

Loving God

Loving God should be easy, at least that is what I think. God’s love is not something we have to earn because it is given freely. Why then do people find it hard to love him? Well, there are several things that can stop us from loving God, but I will share the obvious one which is the sinful nature of man. It can be quite hard to love God when sin pulls us away from knowing God and inevitably loving him. Another thing that makes it hard for us to love God is loving him wholeheartedly. There are many competing things in our lives that can easily distract us from fully loving God. But to love God requires all of our heart and not some of it. (read Mark 12:30). I think of David when it comes to loving God, a man after God’s own heart. Was David sinful? yes, aren’t we all? But his heart ran after God relentlessly even in his sin, he loved God. The Psalmist as he is fondly known, through his many highs and lows showed us how to love God. How then can we love God;

• Be obedient to God’s commands
• Be intentional with your time spent daily with God (in your waking, your work, your routine tasks) make God part of your day.
• Love his people.
• Intimately pray to him, no need to rush. Have a conversation with God.
• Like David, worship and praise him at every chance you get.
• Mediate on his word and allow him to bring a greater understanding of it to you.
• Love him with all of your heart!

It is quite obvious that God desires to have a relationship with you. His love for you is readily available. Love God just like David, even in the highs and lows of your life, it does make a greater difference to love and be loved by God.

Loving his people

Do you know that by loving God’s people, you love him too? God commands us in his word to love one another (read Mark 12:31). The question is how do we love others if the others do not love us back? We love them anyway! Unlike God’s love that is freely given, sometimes we do not love like God does, we instead hold back our love for others. We allow resentment towards others to take precedence over loving them. We only love those who love us, but God says to love even our enemies! It is all people! The temptation to not love others can be so easily done because, unlike God, people are flawed and because of this we conclude it is perfectly okay to be loveless towards the other. But if you read your bible, you know that this is not true. The Bible shares many stories where people did not love each other and what happened later was nothing to desire. The envy of brothers led to them selling their brother into slavery. The hate towards God’s people kept them enslaved for 400 years. The deceit of receiving God’s blessing led to sibling rivalry. I could go on and on to show you how not loving one another is destructive. We can pull from all these examples and see why it is important for us to love one another. So then how do we love God’s people;

• Pray for others. (This includes your enemies!)
• Serve one another with integrity.
• Extend compassion to others.
• Do not judge others.
• Forgive those who have wronged us.
• Give to others sincerely.
• Work towards living in peace with others

If you are like me and you try to imagine a world where everyone loves one another as commanded by God, that love for others can start with you and become a reality. I can admit that I sometimes fail to love others as commanded and ask God to help me love others as he does, even my enemies. I don’t always get it right, but I still seek God’s help when loving others. You can do the same too! Keep this verse in your thoughts as you love God and his people.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul (life), and with all your mind (thought, understanding), and with all your strength.’ This is the second: ‘You shall [unselfishly] [a]love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. - Mark 12:30-31-

It is the greatest command after all! To love God and to love his people! It is time for you to take your rightful place. It is time to trade thorns for crowns.

Much love,

Xholiwe