Part 2: You can Love Others The Way God Loves You

Read Part 1, If You Haven't Yet. 

By Joyce Meyer

2) LEARNING TO LOVE YOURSELF IN A BALANCE WAY Some people will do all kinds of things for everybody else, but they won’t do anything for themselves. And there’s something wrong with that. They have an unbalanced attitude toward themselves and they don’t really feel like they’re worth anything.

We can have negative feelings about ourselves for a lot of different reasons. Maybe you grew up in a home where your parents would never buy you anything or they put you down. Maybe you were abused and you thought it was your fault.

God’s love is the best medicine for the wounded soul. For those of you who have been abused or mistreated in life, God loves you. You may not understand why bad things happened to you, but God will cause all things even bad things to work out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (see Romans 8:28).

It’s vitally important that you learn to love you are and do good things for yourself, because you deserve to feel special. You need that to be a healthy, well-rounded human being.

Another part of becoming a well-rounded soul is learning how to receive correction from God.

 Revelation 3:19 says, Those whom I [dearly and tenderly] love, I tell their faults and convict and convince and reprove and chasten [I discipline and instruct them]. So be enthusiastic and in earnest and burning with zeal and repent [changing your mind and attitude].

How many times when God tells us what’s wrong with us do we shrink from Him instead of run to Him?

Somehow we have this mistaken idea that God’s mad at us. But really, what He’s saying when He corrects us is that He loves us and he won’t ever leave us alone.

For some of us, it takes a long time to understand that. But by revelation, we can really begin to know God’s heart. Instead of being wounded and hurt, we can actually offer God thanks for His faithful correction.

3) LOVING GOD MEANS LOVING PEOPLE Just made an awesome statement. He said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples….” (John 13:34-35).

The Bible plainly tells us what love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient, kind, humble, not rude or easily offended. That means if you’re walking in love, you've got to get over the, “Well, you hurt my feelings” thing. I encourage you to put these things into perspective.

For example, how many times a week do you think you hurt someone’s feeling? How often are you rude because you’re in a hurry? How many times has God forgiven you for the very same thing?

The world is hungry for love. Everywhere we look there are people who don’t know who they are in Christ. Something went wrong in their life and they think there’s something wrong with them and God doesn’t love them.

We can’t expect anyone to know they’re loved if they’re unable to see God’s love flowing through us.

First Corinthians 13:1 says, If I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as inspired by God’s love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

The Bible tells us to love others with agape love: the unconditional love of God that motivates us to give of ourselves through sacrifice. It’s also the kind of love that leads you to overwhelming joy, satisfaction and contentment. But until we get through these steps, we won’t be able to love others the way God loves us. The fact is, we cannot give away something we don’t have.

I encourage you to spend time learning these three steps to walking in love. Because when you learn how to put God’s love into action, flowing to your family and flowing to your neighbors and coworkers you can make an incredible impact for Christ.