So much bickering! So much anger! So many ugly things being said! So much hurt! Can’t we just love each other? After all, this is Valentine’s month, isn’t it?

It’s a valid question. But there’s a problem. It’s a very real problem. The problem is this thing called “love.” We really struggle right there. If you listen to pop songs of yesterday or today, you will get a mixed bag of definitions, illustrations, or dreams of love, but you will find it difficult to find the real sense of love as God has defined it. It’s not what we think it is. Jesus addresses it though. His standard for love is really, really high and very, very difficult. You may not really want to know it. But you also may want to at least take a peek at it. You know, just in case…

In the middle of his greatest sermon, the one that He preaches on a hillside to his disciples, Jesus says this, “So, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12. We were taught this as a child and our parents called it “The Golden Rule.” Scripture often sums up all of the Law and the Prophets with one word, “Love!” The two greatest commands are “Love God and Love Others!” (Mark 12:28-31). Essentially what Jesus is saying here is love is lived out in the Kingdom of God by “whatever you wish others would do to you, you do it to them.” This is startling. This is shocking. Love just isn’t that way! At least, that is what our hearts tell us. Thankfully, the Apostle Paul gives us even more clarity about love in 1Corinthians 13 (Read it at your leisure!).

So, how do we want to be loved? I suggest that there are at least three spheres of our lives that long to be loved.

   We want to be loved emotionally. Don’t we all want emotional acceptance, emotional sensitivity, feeling of being wanted, feeling of being supported, feeling of being needed, the feeling of being important to someone, the feeling of acceptance, feeling belonging, cherished, respected, welcomed, appreciated, befriended, listened to? Then, this is how we treat those around us! You giveemotional acceptance; you be emotionally sensitive to the needs of other; you make others feel needed, wanted, appreciated, and cherished, respected, welcomed, befriended…etc. You see this?

 We want to be loved mentally. We want to be understood; we want our opinion heard; our thoughts to matter; we want recognition, approval, and to be believed in. All of these things and many more aspects we don’t have time to list are what we give to others. Think what relationship in your life right now would be so much better if this was done. Take your thoughts and direct them outwardly to the people around you.        

 We want to be loved physically. We want to be touched, hugged, caressed, and cuddled. I can remember my mother’s hand on my forehead when I was sick and throwing up. That certainly is a one-of-a-kind love.

  Here’s the point though: we don’t manipulate life so we are treated this way! Instead, we give this love to those around us! Wow! This is a tall order! Is there anyone you know that loves like this? I’m pretty sure, I am not capable of doing life and living love like this. So, the original question above, “Can’t we just love each other?” seems a bit like a “No,” doesn’t it?

Unless… Unless something from within our hearts changes. Enter, God’s amazing grace through the person and the work of Jesus! He changes the heart of those who trust Him and by God’s grace, in our struggle to love as we would want to be loved, we humbly exercise His divine grace and we reach out to God in prayer!

 We ask! Simply put, it is an act of humble faith. We are desperate to love this way, so we ask God in faith. Love doesn’t come naturally, but only through God’s grace working in us. We pray for God’s wisdom to love; for God’s patience to love; for God’s Spirit to love through us. This word ask is the word a beggar uses when he is asking for alms!  We don’t know how to love; we are bound by our base desires (7:6) and we are blind by our own lusts and self-serving desires. So, we don’t resort to our own manipulations of life, we die to self and come to Christ in nothing else but humble faith. Notice what Jesus does? He gives! Twice Jesus says this! Of course He does, He loves!

 We seek! This is asking in faith but with passion. Our base passions and desires scare us often so we tend to push away from them. Jesus says we passionately ask! With all the emotional gushing love we can muster we implore, plead, entreat, and appeal for God to grace us with a love that communicates Jesus’ kind of love. But, notice, it is not a demand! It is not with a stomp of the foot, but it is a humble faith with passion. It’s an earnest pursuit of reacting or acting in a way that you know is outside of you! I wonder if when you don’t love your neighbor well if you really passionately ask God for His love? How does Jesus respond to our seeking? He allows us to find. There are ways to love each person, each time! Seek from Christ His love and you will find ways that His love in you can be given.

We knock! This is asking God for love with passion persistently and patiently! It is probably the most blessed part of what Jesus is saying. We keep coming back. Why? Because life continues to present to us time and time again that we can’t love in a way that is needed. We persistently knock in order to patiently learn to love each person in each situation with care, with gentleness, with truthfulness, and with the same grace that Jesus has extended to the likes of us. Notice who opens the door! Twice Jesus says, “It will be opened to you.” He opens the doors to love others. He has to! It’s His love, you’re His person, and the one needing love is His work for His glory!

Who can do this? Only Christ! Look through the pages of Scripture and find people loving in extraordinary ways but getting very little love in return. The Apostle Paul explains how this love happens in Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Faith in Christ is that upward and outward look to Him that steadies our hearts to love people that are so very different from us and look at things from such different views. By faith, we get to die to that inward and downward look that seeks its own and look upward and outward that loves God and loves others. Isn’t that amazing?

So, yes, we can just love each other. And, just for fun, we can work to “outdo one another in showing honor” to each other! (Romans 12:10). What grace!