The Continued Challenge To Love

“The Continued Challenge To Love”

By Zach Wood

2 John 1:6 NLT

Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning.

If you were to ask me if I love my family, I would quickly give you an answer of “Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”  I strive hard every day to be the husband and father that I know I need to be for my family.  It is quite the challenge each day, but I am trying hard and asking God to give me the strength and wisdom I need to be not only a good husband and father, but a Godly one most of all. 

While I strive hard to be loving in my home, I also need to remember that I am commanded to love those outside my home as well.  I am called to love other people in my family, my co-workers and others I come in contact with on a daily basis.  I may not be close to every single person I meet, but God has given me the charge to do my best to love everyone I meet. 

Loving can be downright hard to do at times.  I find that there are really easy people to love and then there are really difficult people to love.  Then, I remember a quote I read recently from TobyMac that says, “Love difficult people.  You are one of them.”  Ouch!  Just a huge dose of reality there!  When I think it’s challenging to love others, others find it challenging to love me as well.  Tough pill to swallow!

We all have a continued challenge to love others.  Every day of my life, I am trying to learn more of what it means to not only love God, but how He wants me to love people around me.  In doing that, I am loving God when I love others. It is often hard to love others!  We all struggle with it.  When we consider it tough to love difficult people, just remember how challenging it was when Christ poured out love to others even when people spit in His face and when they crucified Him.  He prayed for them!  Wow!

What is our problem with loving other people?  God has commanded us to set aside petty differences and do our best to appreciate one another.  Even dealing with differences that are hard to live with, we still need to make an effort to show love in any ways we can.  We should not only love because He tells us to, but we should desire to love because He loved us and His unconditional love drove Him to the Cross to demonstrate that love.  Now that is a dose of deep love! 

We have a continued challenge to love each day.  What will we do with that challenge?