LOVE IS A SUPERPOWER

When we talk about love as one of the our core values, it can sound like just a nice sentiment or even a cliche’. That’s why we say “for each person”. We must see each person as created uniquely in the image of God and worthy of to be loved and respected whether they know God or not.

Rather than just giving assent to the idea that we should love all humanity, we must learn to love those in front of us at any given moment. Honestly, it’s much easier loving humanity-at-large than the particular human who just backed into your car at Albertsons.

A feeling or a choice?

What does it look like to love the people around us? Some say it is a feeling. Some say it is a choice. Really, it is both. You can choose to love when you don’t feel like it. You do this by loving actions that transcend feelings. But who wants to be loved out of discipline? We need the discipline to love when feelings fade, but if it is to be authentic and from the heart it has to be felt.

Love is a power

Thankfully, we aren’t just commanded by God to be loving, we are also empowered by God to to be loving! That changes everything! The blessing of the new covenant is that God promised to put his own Spirit in his people and compel them to do what he wanted them to do. He would give them his heart and his Spirit so that they would want to keep his commandments.

God’s own Spirit who lives inside us as his people actually gives us his love to draw on! This is the secret of loving people you may not even like. It is the power to forgive people who don’t deserve it. God gives us his own love to do the job where ours falls far short. This is a game-changer!

So rather than a choice or a feeling, love is a superpower! You must choose to tap into it before you feel it. But when you do, God’s Spirit in you enables supernatural loving. And there is no feeling in the world better than that!