Mention the word “love” – immediately insides tingle and goose bumps protrude. Mention needing to love more, better, or “love like Jesus” and fear steals oxygen from the air.
“No, I can’t! I won’t”
Fear not, my friend!
Love is powerful. It even has great benefits. I promise not to lead you astray or make you do something harder than what you’re ready for.
Just relax and allow yourself to use your imagination, self-reflect, and be open to learning.
More Love
Can you imagine a world with more love in it than there is now?
- Smiles almost everywhere and assistance offered without ulterior motives
- Churches would almost replace government aid
- News would contain some good stories and no propaganda
- Less crime and safer streets would exist
- People would accept all ethnicities, religions, and the disabled without fear or anger.
That sounds so nice!
If we could love more than before, it could happen.
Has a friend, spouse, or parent showed you love before? How did it make you feel?
Did they sacrifice money or time? Did they speak meaningful and encouraging words? Did they remember something no one else did, making it stand out in your mind?
Then you know the power of love. You can make the same difference to someone.
Love is the one action that can change hearts and bring people together. It’s life-altering!
Unloved
The family unit continues to fall apart from dysfunction, causing increased crime rates, dissipating respect, and declining morals. Hate prevails.
I’ve witnessed it in ministry and written about it when referencing the importance of men in the home.
Hate is created from:
- abusive parents
- absentee parents
- feelings of abandonment
- not taught other behaviors
- victims of crimes committed by outsiders
Hurting people have not seen, felt, or received love. They are searching for a belonging they’ve never experienced.
Then, if that wasn’t enough, I read 50% of human trafficking is done by families.
UNBELIEVABLE!
Loving our families and neighbors would be life altering and loving them even better would be powerful!
How Well do You Love?
To love better, don’t we need a baseline? When teaching a Bible study on 1 Cor. 13:4-8, I created a way to rate how well you love. It’s NOT a test.
For students to be more attentive, I wrote each love trait on an index card, then passed them out to be read aloud. This made it easier to mentally evaluate ourselves more honestly.
With each trait, mentally give yourself a 1, 2, or 3 to evaluate how well you love. No need to total them.
1 – need improvement
2 – okay
3 – satisfactory
1. Am not Rude in my words and actions
2. Never give up
3. Put others’ desires before mine
4. Show Kindness
5. Don’t brag (boast) on my accomplishments and abilities
6. Am Patient
7. Rejoice when truth wins
8. Don’t get jealous of things or people
9. Don’t become irritated
10. Never lose faith
11. Don’t keep track of how often I was victimized
12. Endure through every circumstance
13. Believe you are more important than others (pride)
14. Knowing someone getting wronged unfairly doesn’t excite me
15. Always hopeful
How did you do?
I did better than when I originally taught this but have lots of room for improvement.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV
Life Transforming Actions
Learn to love better – practice these.
1. For 30 days, replace the word “love” with your name when reading 1 Cor. 13:4-8.
2. Copy above list of love traits. Beside each, write your own definition and example.
3. Choose one trait to practice for one week at a time until having practiced all traits.
4. Keep a journal with your successes, failures, and Bible discoveries demonstrating love.
5. To build a new habit, be intentional. Plan an act of love, no matter how simple, to do for someone else every day.
What’s holding us back?
We’ve experienced love in some form or fashion and know how powerful it is, yet don’t always want to put forth the effort.
Why?
Maybe we:
- Don’t know the depth of God’s love
- can’t see others the way Christ does
- enjoy being judgmental and biased
- have misconceptions about what loving is
- are consumed with our own needs and wants
1) Don’t know the depth of God’s love.
The remedy is to know Christ better through His Word and by forming a relationship with Him instead of doing things out of duty.
We must set aside a time to read and study the Bible, pray, and attend church.
We can also remind ourselves of how God loves…
- So much He created man in His own image to fellowship with Him
- gives us repetitive chances to repent
- By Healing the sick
- to fight our battles for us
- Enough to get in the pit with us, lift us out, and set us on solid ground
- giving joy and peace that passes all understanding
- By Giving up His only begotten Son to pay a debt we owed
2) See others as Christ does.
We tend to see bad habits, injustices, and failures. It keeps us from loving others.
Change your focus to seeing others as God sees them.
God Sees:
- His own creation that He breathed His own breath into after forming from dirt instead of speaking into existence, the way He created everything else.
- our heart and knows our intentions – good or deceitful.
- a work in progress.
- our abilities over our shortcomings.
- a “whosoever” He wants to spend eternity with, regardless of how they’ve lived so far.
- our sins no more after repenting.
- a willing vessel He can equip for His purpose when we surrender
3) Judgementalism and Bias
People are scared of others that are different than what they’re accustomed to. I experience this on a small scale by being blind.
People don’t want to be around someone who can’t see, hear, or is in a wheelchair. What about someone with mental disabilities or mental illness?
The unknown brings fear. Our natural reaction to cultures or religions we know nothing about is bias or judgementalism.
Think about this.
- You could have been born with the color of skin of someone you hate
- You could’ve been born in a home with a religion you despise
- You could’ve been born in a wealthier or poorer home with parents more liberal or conservative than yours
But you weren’t.
We’re all technically from the same bloodline from Adam. The Tower of Babel was the origin of different cultures.
Others might think differently, act differently, and possibly believe differently, but they’re still your relation.
When You Don’t Feel Like Loving . . .
Have you ever been rejected? Felt out of place? Have you done something wrong you never wanted others to know about?
When you did, you also felt undeserving and unwanted – UNLOVVED.
When you understood God accepted you just as you are – with your shortcomings, flaws, and imperfections, how did you feel?
It only took a sincere prayer accepting who Jesus is, what He did on the cross for us, and His resurrection.
Isn’t that wonderful?
Don’t you want someone else to feel the same?
Love is the magnet that draws others to Christ. Watch its power by memorizing these affirmations.
Loving Others’ Affirmations:
- Sinners in need of salvation must be shown God’s love
- Jesus died for you, AND He died for them
- We have ALL sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). In God’s eyes, we’re no different.God gives everyone chance after chance. Shouldn’t we?God loved you in spite of yourself – please extend the same grace to another.
- God loved us enough to send His only Son to die for our sins. How much more should we love Him in return? By loving mankind – His creation?
Download this free pdf if you desire.
Show your love by sharing this with your friends.
© 2025, Jena Fellers. All rights reserved.
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