Growing in loving God and others

Growing  in loving God and others
January 2018
Copyright
Kathleen Maxwell-Rambie

     

Our son Barrett and his new wife Aimee

One of the outstanding characteristics of God, is his constant, everlasting love for us. When someone says the word God to me, two words frequently pop into my mind,  His faithfulness and love. No matter what is going on in my life, His faithfulness and love are  my anchor and security. How about you? What pops into your head when you hear the word God? 

Opening our hearts and our minds to God’s love will bring many benefits into our lives and those we are around. With Valentines Day around the corner, we focus on love, I think it would be good for us to spend some extra time loving God and practicing loving others.

     I have seen in my own life that the more I open my heart to God’s love for me and spend time loving Him, the better I am at loving others. We are all born with a need to be loved and we are born being selfish and self centered. Love thinks of others first. I’ve been asking God to reveal to me when I am self centered or selfish as I want to love others better.

     Love is a connection of hearts. Real love is based on relationship.When we love God with our hearts, instead of our mind, we are able to love others with God’s love. Actually, when we love those we are around well, it shows our love for God. 1 John 4:7 state,”Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (NIV)

Fun West Texas adventures with my husband 

      All of us can improve in loving God and loving others. When I think of those in my life that have loved me well, they are people that love God, are sensitive, compassionate and are not self centered. They are the people that believe the best in me and stand by me no matter what. They are people that demonstrate their love for God by how they love me and others in their lives. 

Humble people and those not afraid to admit when they are wrong, are usually good at loving others. People that love in their actions, not just in words.Think of the people in your life that you feel love you well. What are their characteristics? Do they say they love God or demonstrate that they love God by loving others. Loving others well is proof of our love for God.

     Believing God loves us takes faith. Faith and love are linked together. Fifty five times in the Bible, the words faith and love are mentioned in the same scripture. We cannot really believe in God’s faithfulness until we really believe God loves us. I can totally trust in God’s faithfulness to me because I’ve learned of His love for me. 

Grant-my newest grandson!

I will never forget the day I admitted to some friends and my late husband, that I believed God loved other people, but wasn’t convinced that He really loved me.  Let me confess, I had been a believer for 20 years.  That confession was the beginning of a great journey of discovering God’s incredible love for me. That love has become the bedrock of security and trust in God. It took a lot of courage to admit what I felt, as my late husband and I were leading a Bible study; but it was a gut level confession and God heard it and honored it. 

Do you need to get gut level honest with God? I had been taught since I was a child that God loved me, and believed it in my head, but not my heart. It was not until I was honest with others and God as a thirty year old woman, that I really began to understand God’s love for me. Let me encourage you to be honest with God. He already knows your heart anyway.

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   Galatians 2:20 says,“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (NIV) 

We see in this scripture that our faith in God is directly linked to knowing His love for us. Let me encourage you, if you lack faith in God, you need to discover His love for you. Personally, I want to be known as a woman that loved God with all her heart and loves others well. Unfortunately, I know people that say they love God but do not love the poor and needy and others well.

      I personally believe, we can all grow in loving  God, understanding His love and loving others. Ask God to teach you more of His love for you and it will help you in loving others. Scripture tells us 1 John 4:12, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (NIV)

My oldest son-LCDR Austin Maxwell

 1 John 4:16 states, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

     Love and forgiveness go hand in hand. I will admit, there have been times in my life I have had to ask God to give me His love for others because of hurt or injustice I have felt. It is easy to judge others when we have not walked in their shoes and often times, that judgment wounds those around us. In those times, we are on shaky ground.

 There are times when I have to say, “I choose as an act of my will to forgive ____.  There are times I have to preach to myself and say, “Kathleen, you got to love them.” If God loves me and forgives me, I have to love and forgive others.

 No matter what I feel, I want to love others as He does. I have no problem in asking Him for help in loving difficult people. I need His help and am not afraid to admit it. It is better than not loving them.

     1 John 4:20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.(NIV) 

We cannot hate others and  have unforgiveness towards them and love God. That is a tough statement but don’t shoot me...I didn’t write the book.

    Bottom line, God loves us in our worst state; therefore, we need to loves others in theirs. February  is only a few days away and is a month when we concentrate on love. Let’s look at God’s love for us and get to know Him better. Open your heart to Him, ask Him to teach you about His love and ask Him to help you love others. 

And remember, love never fails, so it is a sound investment. Will you join me in focusing on telling God daily you love him and practicing loving others?

Kathleen Maxwell is a native of the Hill Country, educator, writer and speaker. She is passionate about helping others discover the joy of walking with God and their value. You can contact her at kathleenmaxwell1@gmail.com and on her blog www.themaxwellminutes.blogspot.com

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