One of the most difficult things to do is to love your enemies. To love someone who may have wronged you is really beyond the normal human nature. It really does take a different kind of person to choose to love on those that hate you. But Jesus did it.

 

Jesus is the Son of God, yes, but He came down from that and was human too. He became flesh for the simple reason to show us that we can be like Him. We all think that just because Jesus was the Son of God that we could never do what He did, but what we forget is that He actually left His divinity and walked this earth. He became one of us to show us how to live. He didn’t just come into this world with a knowledge of God and what this whole Christian thing was about. He had to learn just like us, He had to study scripture and develop a relationship with the Father, just like we do.

 

So when we understand that the only difference between us and Jesus when He was on this earth is that He sought God with His entire being, you will realise that we could live just as Jesus did.

Something that fascinates me is that when Jesus looked at people, He looked at them with love. No I don’t mean He just looked at them through loving eyes, they could see love on His face when He looked at them. He literally had a love look. You not only felt His love toward you, you could actually see the love He had for you on His face. Do you have a love look? Its hard enough to just love on people who hurt you, but imagine actually looking at people, even your worst enemies with love in your eyes and on your face. Do people see love on your face when you look at them?

 

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

This is real love — not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.”

1 John 4:7-11.. This scripture is probably one of my favourites. Now this is not condemnation that you don’t know God because you battle to love your enemies. Its a journey and God understands that. We seem to always think God is this big guy in the clouds looking for a reason to throw lightening bolts at us, but its not like that at all. When I read that scripture, I see it more like ‘how can we not love each other if we know God?’ When we are truly inlove with God and building a relationship with Him, everything He is and does becomes so beautiful.

 

Its like when you start to like someone and as you’re getting to know them more and more, you’re just captivated by their every word and action. You start to see the beauty of God in every situation and every person. Maybe it’s hard to understand, but when you start loving someone one, and pursuing a relationship with them, suddenly all that they do becomes so intriguing and everything they do becomes mesmerising.

 

You feel the same way about God. It’s why when we read the Word and we see God in something it excites us and we just want to know more. So when you have found perfect love, which is God, you can’t help but have an overflow of love for the world around you. Suddenly it becomes a little easier to love your enemies because you start to look at them from God’s perspective.

You love becomes like God’s love. It becomes a wild fire. Unstoppable and consuming all that it encounters. I don’t know about you, but I want to love like that.

 

I came across a quote a while ago, and I have no idea who said it or where it came from but it just stuck with me and I think it’s probably the coolest quote I’ve ever read.

“Love like a hurricane, not a leaky faucet.” I really love that. Love like a HURRICANE. Love in such a way that the people you encounter are never the same. Don’t just give little “drops” of love, love so hard that people’s walls come crashing down, let your love have a lasting effect.
That’s the Christ love we all experience when we are with Him. Now I know, sometimes it can be draining because you’re loving so much sometimes no one gives any love back, but that’s where God comes in. The more you are in God and God is in you, the more love will flow out of you, so the more you give love, the more room you make for God to continue filling you and causing your cup to overflow.

 

-Kelly Hardouin