VERSE:
1 John 4:19-21
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
LESSON:
This verse could equally have said, my cousin, my neighbor, my co-worker or my classmate instead of the word "brother". The point is that because God loved us first...we can learn to truly love others. We can even learn to love those who we would initially think are just simply "unlovable". The crabby person. The complaining person. The tattle-tale. The person who borrows and never returns, or worse yet, the person who cheated us or stole from us. Is loving others "voluntary"? This verse tells us that if you are a Christian...we have been given a "command" to love others. Try today to love just one other person that yesterday you would have thought was impossible to even consider.
