This past week at echo, we talked about how God’s love for us enables us to express love for other people.
Loving other people is one of the hardest things we can do, especially when we define love as an other-oriented, unconditional, self-sacrificial attitude. Often in our lives, there are people we find it easy to get along with, and we can quickly point to that comfortable friendship or relationship and say that we love that person. Other times, people hurt us, and we daydream about punching them in the stomach (if you are the type of person who wants to appear nice all the time). Or we actually do punch them in the stomach (if you are the type of person who enjoys coming off as aggressive)! Strangely enough, that violent, vengeful feeling is an indicator that we are being presented with an opportunity to self-sacrifice, with an opportunity to demonstrate agape.

As part of the covenant that God made with Abraham, God said:
“I will bless the entire earth through your descendents.”
That line stands out to me. God intends for the people of the Kingdom to be a blessing to the entire earth! This means we have the privilege of demonstrating self-sacrificial love to all those around us. In difficult relationships, we do our best to forgive, and to reconcile. This can be an intensely painful process, especially when it means we actually need to sacrifice, and we actually need to change! This is our role as Kingdom people. We demonstrate to the world what it looks like to have whole and peaceful relationships among ourselves, as members of the body of Christ. God loves us, and trusts us to be agents of his love and healing in the world. God sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and partner with us in this task. As God’s love lives in us, may we look outward and show that love to those around us.