Loving folks can be such a hard thing to do
God loves repetition because He knows how easily His people forgets His word. John reminds us this old/new commandment, love one another. It is old because it has been around since Moses, even in the beginning with the first man and woman, God wanted them to love one another. It is new because in John's lifetime, he has seen this lived out by the God-man Jesus Christ. His Spirit allows us to live this too as His followers. We are that light that He left here, to shine in the dark places.
Am I walking around blind, causing my brothers and sisters to stumble? Am I loving them properly? Love is living in the light, the truth, not lieing for the other person's "benefit". Not causing others to stumble means helping them, encouraging them, praying for them, not gossiping about them and being malicious behind their back or in their face. This is how people know that I am in the light as I say I am. This is how I know, loving my brothers and sisters (even the ones that do me wrong). If I choose to walk in hate, deception and darkness, I have not only lost my opportunity to have relationship with man, to lead them to the light (Christ), I have lost my opportunity to have a relationship with God. Without that most important relationship with God I have lost my direction and my guiding light, leaving me to scratch out life in the darkness alone. That is not the life I want to live, I want to be in the light with my Jesus.
Father forgive me when I have fallen short in this area. When I have been a stumbling block instead of a light leading others to you. Help me to not be blinded and be guided back to you and your way. Help me to love difficult people because you loved the most difficult person in my life, me. You did not just love me in word but in deed, by laying your life down for a wretch like me. Thank you daddy for that sacrifice, help me to live sacrificially in loving the difficult and not so difficult people in my life, as you loved me. Thank you Jesus, In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Created about 2 years ago
