Love, By the Numbers

1. We are to love eachother as He loved us.

Jesus gives us the imperative:

John 15:12
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

2. We make excuses - “But they hate us, they persecute us, they are our enemies!”
Jesus responds to our excuses with His Kingdom command that addresses our earthly problem:

Luke 6:27
“But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

When we decide to love our enemies, and our enemies decide to love theirs, enemies cease to exist on both sides of any fence.
It has to start somewhere, why not with us?

3. We say “There, I said I love you to that person who wronged me 15 years ago.” Or we post a nice verse about loving all mankind on social media.

1 John 3:18
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Here Jesus reminds us it has to be more than words. We have love them not just in our speech, but with what we do. It has to be a true love - from our hearts, not just our heads.
Saying we love all mankind means nothing if we don't truly love each individual.
In other words, if we aren’t walking the walk, our talk is just talk.

4. We're reminded that it’s necessary (go back to step 1 and repeat daily).

John 14:15
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Jesus said this to His disciples right after He again demonstrates His love for them, this time by washing their feet (see step 3, above). He shows His love not just by words, in fact far more often by “deed and truth”.

He loved us ALL so much that He died for us, ALL of us.
Yes, you too.
Even as He hung on the cross, He asked God to forgive those that had persecuted Him, because He loved them.

He demonstrated His love for all mankind, even for those that society called unlovable, including us when we FEEL unlovable.

Let’s do the same and watch the world change.