Three Love Facts
Bible Reading: 1 Peter 4:7-11
Continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8
Jacob ran home after school, feeling like he’d been kicked by his classmates. If I’m as big of a dirtbag as they say I am, he thought to himself, then no one wants to be around me. Fine. If they don’t want to be around me, I don’t want to be around them. He went into his room, shut the door, lay down on his bed, and clamped on his head¬phones. And with the music blasting loud enough to blow his eardrums, he tried hard to think about anything but people.
There’s a problem with Jacob’s approach to life: We can’t resign from the human race. Whether we like the idea or not, God put us here on Earth to have relationships with people. There are three facts about love we can’t avoid:
Fact 1: You don’t have an option to love. The Bible’s biggest command to Chris¬tians is to love God and love people. God custom-built us to be involved with people of all kinds-even people who bug us, bother us, or bore us. Even when people make the job look impossible, God created us to try to get along with people.
Once Jacob cooled down, he remembered that all around him were people who needed to experience God’s real, life-changing love. He saw every day as a chance to love people who needed it most.
Fact 2: Love is an action. Do you hate hearts, flowers, and drippy love songs? That’s okay! Love isn’t a feeling. It’s a choice.
Once Jacob prayed that God would open his eyes, he saw that God was giving him many opportunities to enjoy people, comfort them, and guide them to Christ.
Fact 3: Love is often hard. Sometimes figuring out the loving thing to do is tough. Sometimes doing the loving thing is even tougher. Fortunately, God didn’t design you to love people and then leave you clueless about how to do it.
Once Jacob read his Bible, he discovered that it invited him to experience God’s love. It commanded him to put love into practice in the real world. And it instructed him on what love looks like.
We’re made to love and keep on loving. Love never fails, but sometimes we fail at loving God and others. That’s when we need to go back and get some of God’s fresh love-and while we’re at it, we can reread God’s instructions on how to show his love to others!
TALK: When have you wanted to pull away from your world? Why is that not a long-term option?
PRAY: Ask the God of love to keep teaching you what it means to love him and others.
ACT: Which “love fact” do you have the hardest time accepting and applying to your life? Work on that!