Love Came Down At Christmas
Love.
When you think about love you are most likely drawn to romantic love, but there are so many other types of love that are integral to being a well rounded person. There’s parental and familial love, there’s friend love, there’s self love and then there’s neighborly love. There is love all around us if only we slow down to absorb it. Consider John 15:12
“This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.”
What kind of place would our world be if we took the time to love everyone? I wonder. I have always been the sort of person who has more love then they know what to do with. Giving it away with what some would call reckless abandon. I genuinely try to live up to those words and love every person I meet. This does not mean I like every person I have met, but it also doesn’t mean that I can’t show them Christ’s love either. Those two concepts are not synonymous, which is something I think we, as people, have forgotten. Extending Christ’s love to everyone you meet is easier than it sounds, and I know you are reading this right now thinking “But Hannah, how do I love someone I don’t even like, or maybe can’t even stand?!” For those of you thinking those thoughts I want you to consider this verse from Romans 5:8:
“I loved you at your darkest.”
If God can love each of us at our darkest, doesn’t it behoove me to at least try to love everyone I meet? I’m no saint, but I am, like each of you, a sinner and I have made mistakes, yet God loves me and forgives me time and time again. So I urge each of you to try to extend Christ’s love to at least one person you might not otherwise show love to, I promise you will come out surprised at how God will use you and that display of love for the betterment of all involved.
Lord, please open my heart and mind to loving all who cross my path. Let the love you give me shine through me, so that all may see me as a beacon of Godly Love. Let me not despair if someone else doesn’t meet my ideal, but remind me that we all deserve to be loved. Thank you for your never ending patience with me in this and all my endeavors Lord. I love you Lord and thank you for granting me the capacity to love all those I meet. Amen.