Up to this time we have been receiving God's Word for us concerning the only way that we can love Him. To love God is to obey His commandments, as given to us by Jesus.
To Love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength requires us to know Him. KNOW Him. We can only know Him by reading, listening, studying His commands as given to us by Jesus. To love Him is to exercise the truths that Jesus revealed to us. We must DO those things that Jesus told us to do. Not selectively, but in totality.
In order to love our neighbor as we love ourselves we need to follow the commands of Jesus as well. Sometime we find ourselves in situations that challenge us to Love our neighbor. The key is to recognize the areas that cause us to fail in doing that which demonstrates love for our neighbors. We must love them as we love ourselves. We all want the forgiveness that God offers those who love Him by FOLLOWING Jesus. " Love one another as I have loved you" said our Lord. He forgives us when we repent. He wants us to forgive those who "sin" against us. This sometimes seems very difficult to do. Just think of the horrendous suffering that Jesus experienced because of our sins. He did so to pay the price for our sins and our neighbors. Realizing this truth gives us the grace to forgive our neighbor, regardless of what we experience at the hands of our neighbor. Love is not an emotion but rather doing good to God by doing good to our neighbor.
A way to start is to examine our relationships, confess our "grudges" and literally forgive that which we hold against anyone. To forgive requires us to forget. Do good to those who hurt you, love them by treating them in the way you want God to forgive you, even to the laying down of your life for them. Even is they continue to do wrong things to us.
Please dwell on God's love for you.
5 comments:
Thank you for sharing God's word with us today. It's easy to pick and choose what commandments to follow, but it is so important to follow them all. Sometimes it is difficult to love our neighbors despite what they are saying to us, but we must constantly think about what Jesus would do.
God bless you,
Jackie
Daddy,
AMEN!!!!
Several years ago as we were going through serious persecution from someone God taught us this same teaching. One day while driving the children to school, we were praying, and finished our prayers with The Lords Prayer...
Suddenly like a light bulb..I stopped and said "Kids what we just prayed...FORIVE US OUR DEBTS as We FOrgive our Debtors"..If we don't forgive them God will NOT FORGIVE US.
Dad Such peace FINALLY came into our home not mearly from the revealtion of that JESUS Taught Prayer...but from ACTING on that forgiveness..making a call..telling the offender and NOT begin offended anylonger.
It's NOT a lesson learned once and then we move on...this is a lesson that we must live out each day.
THANK YOU for this WORD!
(By the way...
we LOVE our Neighbors)
Love,
Dee
POWERFUL!
I needed this to begin my work week.
Thank you once again for such great food for the soul. I truly enjoy reading your messages. As I shared once before I read them each morning before I go into my prayer time.
I love the Praise SOng at the top of the page. Thank you for posting it.
I look forward to reading your posts even when I am a day late getting to read them. They are a true blessing.
Janet
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