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“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”. (1 John 4: 7-8)

I believe that as Christians the first thing we should show to our brothers and sisters is love. Love covers a multitude of sins as 1 Peter 4:8 says. I had the privilege of meeting a couple that made me realize that it is possible to accept love and show love to others in many ways and I strongly believe that God has put them in my life to better accept His love and learn how to love others. How can we live without love while the one we believe in is Himself, Love? The first step God took in bringing us to Him was showing us His love.

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 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”. (1 John 4: 9-12)

Wrapping up this year and the Christmas season we were in, I invite you all to reflect and meditate more on God’s love for us. If you are a parent, try to think if you could give up your only child as a sacrifice to save others from their sins/ wrongdoings. I honestly wouldn’t do such a thing but God did it for YOU. He gave His only Son as a way of telling you that He loves You and wants to save you and have a relationship with you. This does not mean that it was easy for Jesus but God knew that from that sacrifice you and I will be saved and given eternal life. God wasn’t going to benefit anything from that sacrifice but He knew that it is the only way you and I could be saved.

As God loved us and as their children, I invite you all to love one another, especially those who are hard to love because it may be their only way of seeing Jesus, through your love for them. I know that this is easy to say than do since those people may have hurt you badly but let me remind you that hurt people hurt. People can only give what they have and as you receive God’s love, you become able to give love in return.

“We love because he first loved us. 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. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister”. (1 John 4: 19-21)

I spent many years without fully walking in Jesus and I couldn’t understand why since I loved God and wanted to follow Him but I was continually finding myself far from Him when I thought I was doing everything I needed to do to be closer to Him until He revealed to me that I had hate in my heart toward someone and God cannot cohabit with hate since He is love. Take time to reflect on your heart and see if there is love in it. You don’t need to have hate like in my case but is there love in it? Think about each one of the following virtue of love and pray over them, and ask God to reveal to you ways you can show love to others.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7)

Prayer: Father God, thank you for sending your Son to Earth as a sacrifice to show me love and give me eternal life. Thank you for loving me first even though I did not deserve it. Thank you for being a Father to me, and always showing me your love in my lowest as well as my highest time. Thank you for Your perfect love even though You know me more than anyone, my weaknesses don’t decrease your love for me. Help me to show love to others in the same way, help me to be kind to them, to love them despite their actions, to be patient, and not be easily angered. Reveal to me ways to love others as you commanded us to, as it is the only way they can see You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.