A Fervent Love

Ask the Lord to show you whom you need to love with a fervent love.

1 Peter 1:22 “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.”

A fervent love is a love that is stretched to its full potential. This kind of love requires putting the focus on someone else, taking it off yourself and being willing to extend love outside your comfort zone. It’s easy to love the people in our life that we get along with, know well and like. But what about people we don’t know, people who don’t like us, or people we don’t like?

What are some reasons you might dislike someone else? You’re jealous of their looks or popularity. (You want to be prettier or more popular.) Their personality rubs you the wrong way. (You think your personality is much better.) They are rude to you or just ignore you. (What right do they have to ignore or be rude to you?) What is the common denominator in all these reasons? Pride. One of the biggest hurdles to loving others is our own pride.

God tells us in Philippians 2:3, “ Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.” God says we are to consider everyone else as better than we are. That can be very hard to do. However, this kind of humility is essential for us to love others the way God has called us to love them.

We cannot have humility and show fervent love to others without Christ’s work of transformation in our lives. He says to love fervently from our purified souls which have only become pure if we’ve surrendered our lives to God and asked him to forgive our sins and purify us.*An anonymous author said, “You will never look into the eyes of someone God does not love.  Always be kind.” It’s important to remember that God loves everyone and we are to love everyone.

Romans 3:23; 6:23; 5:8; 10:9-10

Have you surrendered your life to God, asked him to forgive your sins and purify your heart? If not, I encourage you to read the verses in Romans that are listed above and decide to do that today. If yes, what did you learn today about your responsibilities in thinking about and treating others?

List a few people that you have a hard time loving.

Ask the Lord to help you humble yourself and love these people fervently.