I read my news feed or glance at social media and encouragements to love stare back. This usually involves loving a cause currently in vogue, or persons different from myself. As a part of this loving emphasis, people also humbly brag how they love better than others.

I find it easy to talk big about love, but much harder to practice. While folks spray paint love on walls and post signs on doors, I don’t notice an actual increase in loving acts of compassion around me.

John wrote this: Little children, let us not love in words or talk but in deed and and in truth.

Talk is cheap when it comes to actually loving others—spray paint as well. The thought does not count. Only the actual work, in particular toward those difficult for us to love, begins to fulfill that of which John writes.

Jesus taught to love your enemies. Incredibly counter-cultural to this day. I don’t see this phrase on many walls. How do we love such difficult people in our lives? Zechariah tells us, not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of Hosts.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to move from feelings of love to actual practice in our gritty interactions with others. Just ask, and you’ll find help to move from words to deeds.

1 John 3 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Hannah Gibbs