Love is Something You Do

Proverbs 10:12 Hatred causes arguments, but love overlooks all wrongs.

What do you do, when someone wrongs you, over and over again? When they treat you badly? Well, how exactly do you handle that?

My hunch is that there’s not one of us who doesn’t want to live in peace. So, why do people fight wars? Why do we do horrible things to one another – at work, at home, on the roads and in the supermarket carpark? Why can’t we just play nice, and live in peace, for goodness sake?

Well, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. We’re naturally, pretty selfish individuals. And when we don’t get our way, over and over again, selfishness turns into anger, and not too far down the track, anger turns into hatred.

Have you ever hated someone? Detested them with every fibre of your being? I think we all have. And that hatred, if we let it go on, stirs up a whole world of trouble … and once that happens, that peace we were all hoping for, well … it’s gone.

Jesus talked a lot about love. But love isn’t just a noun, a thing that we either have or don’t have, it’s also a verb … a “doing word”. Love is something we do. Love is when we forgive someone for the umpteenth time for hurting us.

Proverbs 10:12 Hatred causes arguments, but love overlooks all wrongs.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we should hold people to account and yes, sometimes, you have to bring things to a head. But even then, love does it in a way that tries to bring peace. Love overlooks wrongs, and when it can’t, it deals with them in a way that tries to heal relationships.

It’s hard. It hurts sometimes. Ask Jesus. But it brings peace.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.

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