The chill in the air can be felt.
The love of some people is growing cold.
The love of some Christians is growing cold.
Keep that love warm.
Love others. Try to overlook their faults. Love covers a multitude of sins.
And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves:
for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8
It’s interesting that the King James Version interprets love as charity.
Maybe that is because it is a sacrificial form of love.
A love from the inside that needs to be given in sincerity from the Lord,
even when those you are loving do not deserve it?
Who really deserves love?
None of us do. It’s the kind of thing you cannot purchase and you can’t demand it.
We did not deserve God’s love. If we have experienced love,
it has always been given by someone who wants to love us.
We also can’t respond when others demand love from us
or wish we would love them.
We have to choose to love.
Sometimes we have to allow God to love through us.
Maybe the love we are supposed to give is a weakness we have
and we need God’s strength to give it to some people.
Some people are easy to love.
The ones that aren’t, the ones that we might even hate if we could,
if God didn’t care,
those ones we do need God to help us to love.
That is our choice. We can choose not to love.
We can choose to hate them or not forgive them or dismiss them.
All of the above are displeasing to God.
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar:
for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
how can he love God whom he hath not seen? John 4:20
Remember the Good Samaritan?
He charitably loved the guy who was wounded.
Then, Jesus said to those who heard the parable, go and do likewise.
Jesus wants us to love those who need love, even when it is not our responsibility,
even when they are wretched people.
Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2
Scriptural References:
And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying,
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
And He answering said,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind;
and thy neighbour as thyself.
And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
And Jesus answering said,
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves,
which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there came down a certain priest that way:
and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him,
and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was:
and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine,
and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn,
and took care of him.
And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence,
and gave them to the host, and said unto him,
Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more,
when I come again, I will repay thee.
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him
that fell among the thieves?
And he said, He that shewed mercy on him.
Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Luke 10:25-37
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
Matthew 24:12