We Make It Difficult

Love others as you love yourself.  Sounds easy enough.  Treat others as you would want to be treated.  Pretty straightforward. 

Christ came to set you and I free, He set us free so we could love one another, so that we could spread His love to those around us who need to feel it and know it, just as we want to feel and know it.  It’s simple really, but we can make it difficult fairly easily.

We make it difficult when we come up with our own plans, when we develop our own agenda and what we want crowds out God’s plan and closes our ears to His voice.

We make it difficult when we are more concerned about ourselves, our needs, our wants, our desires and following God’s instruction to consider others above ourselves falls by the wayside.

We make it difficult when we give up on what’s required to love well, things like faithfulness, steadiness, showing up when you don’t feel like it and when you are not seeing the results you’d like and we trade it in for things that are fast, cheap and easy, until we realize we’ve traded our freedom for a lie.

We make it difficult when God instructs us to do something and we choose not to.

We make it difficult when we judge ourselves and others too harshly, when we forget to extend grace, even though it’s been so freely given to us. 

Loving others, sounds simple, but you and I, we can complicate things.

God set us free so that we can love others well.  How are you doing?  What can you do today to share some of that love that has been lavished on you?  What do you need to let go of, so you can walk in the freedom that was purchased for you?  Whatever, you are facing today, of one thing I’m sure, LOVE is the answer. 

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. – Galatians 5:13&14 (The Message)