Love.

That's a hard concept. Now a days we love everything and everyone; nearly all the emotion has been stripped from the word the way that its used today. I think it's safe to say that many of us don't really know what love is anymore. We are able to assign that emotion to basically everything in our lives; we love our cats, our dogs, our dinner, our car, the funny boy in class, our boyfriends, I could literally go on for hours...The truth us that love is a really strong emotion (the exact opposite of hate, and none of us are unaware that hate is a really strong emotion, so therefore love must be pretty strong too...). I've done it myself, said I've loved something that I really just like a lot or even just felt lust toward; there is a HUGE difference between this and love. So what exactly is love then?

My Young Life leaders and youth pastors have always said this about love: Can what you love, love you back? I think that this is a really key thing to understanding love. Humans can love us back, heck animals can even love us back, but other things like money and possession can't do that. There is no way that material things can return the love that we give to them, no matter how hard we try. God is the ultimate example of love; we know from John 3:16  that "God so loved the world He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall never perish but have eternal life." Think about that for a second...God sent the only true son that He was ever going to have to earth to DIE for our sins. He loves us that much. Wow. I don't know about you, but that totally baffles me. I don't of anyone on this earth that loves someone so much that they would send their only son to live for the sole purpose of dying for the one he loves. It's total crazy talk! And yet God did that, for us.

In Matthew 22 we are commanded to "Love others as well as you love yourself" and earlier in Matthew Jesus tells to "love your enemy." Sometimes as a Christian we are forced to love people that we don't want to, like I don't want to love Mr. February, but it's this love for all people that sets us apart from the rest of the world ("By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" John 3:15). Love is a powerful emotion, and we can put it to use in ways that are unexpected to the world and share Christ with others through  our love.

I challenge you this week to learn to love someone that you have a severe dislike for. It's a hard thing to do, but it's also what you're commanded to do by God. Start from a far, even go against how your friends act if you must, but start learning to love everyone in your life and sharing you love for Christ as you do so.

xoxo,

Abby the Gator