Scripture Reference: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7 NIV
This is one of the most popularly quoted sentences regarding love. As simple as it sounds, it is not the easiest thing to practice. This is major because we are all generally selfish. How can you love your neighbour as yourself? What then happens to you if you love others as much as you love yourself? It means sometimes your own needs and desires will be unattended to while others get exactly what you should have gotten.
Loving your neighbour as yourself will require you bringing down the walls in your heart to accommodate others? Have you ever been broke because you had to give money to someone desperately in need, or gone without sleep to help someone and show how much you care? Well, the Bible says it is not wrong. If you were royalty with servants at your beck and call, there was nothing you lacked, and you got a proposal suggesting that you spent the next 20 years of your life as a servant or a pauper in the streets to help others, would you accept it? Let’s say your royal
status was still intact till after the 20-year mark, will you let it go? I probably don’t think anyone in their right senses will. But Jesus did just that, for your sake and progress, He left royalty. Jesus left heaven to this lowly earth to show how much he loves you, and He is taking you to heaven someday. That is the true definition of loving your neighbour as yourself. Jesus even died for people who would never receive Him and begged for forgiveness for those who hurt him and Jesus wins every day when one more person is added to the fold of the Christian faith. This is the example we should live by. Love always wins.
Daily digest: 1John 4:1-21
Prayer: Dear Father, I understand that the relationship we both have is the fruit of your immense and intense love towards me. This understanding has given me the strength I need to love my neighbour and the strength to look beyond their undeserving natures. I ask that you help me to reciprocate this love to you by loving your people. Amen
