"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."
1 John 4:20-21
This scripture makes a good point. We strive to understand and love God through reading the scriptures, praying, going to church... we have to put forth effort to get to know him in this life, and to love him. Like any relationship. And that's good, and so important to everything... knowing him, and understanding his will in our lives. But sometimes we claim to love God without understanding what that means, and part of what is means is that we have to love each other... our brothers and sisters. And by brothers and sisters, not just our immediate families, but brothers and sisters in the sense of all of God's children.
As we strive to love God... to understand the immensity of that... we can't be satisfied with only loving our significant others, or our best friends. We can't be satisfied with only loving the people that are similar to us... those that share our faith, our race, or our nationality. All of the people on this Earth are our brothers and sisters. It's an immense concept, but an important one. How can we understand and love God without attempting to learn to love as he does? And he loves every single person on this earth. Even the ones we hate... or fear... or dismiss... or that annoy us in traffic. :) The ones who cheat us, or break laws. The ones that 'steal' our jobs, or who are on the other side of a war. God loves them. That person at work. That one relative... He loves them too. The people that we're scared of mugging us, or corrupting our children. The politicians, the used-car salesmen.
Today, let's try to expand our hearts a little, and to learn to love the people that we have a hard time loving. We're all sinners... we all fall short. And we all desperately need God's help. We've got that in common, if nothing else. :) Let's build on it.
And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."
1 John 4:20-21
This scripture makes a good point. We strive to understand and love God through reading the scriptures, praying, going to church... we have to put forth effort to get to know him in this life, and to love him. Like any relationship. And that's good, and so important to everything... knowing him, and understanding his will in our lives. But sometimes we claim to love God without understanding what that means, and part of what is means is that we have to love each other... our brothers and sisters. And by brothers and sisters, not just our immediate families, but brothers and sisters in the sense of all of God's children.
As we strive to love God... to understand the immensity of that... we can't be satisfied with only loving our significant others, or our best friends. We can't be satisfied with only loving the people that are similar to us... those that share our faith, our race, or our nationality. All of the people on this Earth are our brothers and sisters. It's an immense concept, but an important one. How can we understand and love God without attempting to learn to love as he does? And he loves every single person on this earth. Even the ones we hate... or fear... or dismiss... or that annoy us in traffic. :) The ones who cheat us, or break laws. The ones that 'steal' our jobs, or who are on the other side of a war. God loves them. That person at work. That one relative... He loves them too. The people that we're scared of mugging us, or corrupting our children. The politicians, the used-car salesmen.
Today, let's try to expand our hearts a little, and to learn to love the people that we have a hard time loving. We're all sinners... we all fall short. And we all desperately need God's help. We've got that in common, if nothing else. :) Let's build on it.
Amen to that, I am definitly going to share this with others...thank you
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