Gospel Filled {Love} - Loving Your Brother

 Hebrews 13:1-2 

  
1 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

    As I look at my life - all the way back through middle school and beyond - I can remember specific people in my life who I consciously struggled to {love}. Maybe it's my personality (ultimately I know it's sin), but loving others is potentially one of my biggest struggles and to do so in a way that strives to be selfless is a double whammy. These people's names and faces will always be etched on my memory and I will always wonder how their lives or outlook on the Gospel would be different had I been a {loving} friend to them. As I encourage myself to take every moment captive, to {love} others from here on out, may you be encouraged that in Christ there is forgiveness and that there is no time like the present to start actively pursuing and {loving} others...even those who are hard to {love}. 

   As I was reading Hebrews 13 today, the first two verses stuck out to me and made me think more deeply on this topic that I've been wrestling with other the last couple months. Am I more apt to {love} the newcomer in church rather than {loving }those who are continually in my church body? Yes, we are extorted to {love} and show hospitality(a topic that I love), to strangers, but how can I {love} the way God commands if I'm not already {loving} those He's placed into my life. 

   Christ is our ultimate example of {love}. Imagine what He did to show us {love} from His perspective. Before coming to earth He was in //perfect// holy communion with God the Father. He was completely satisfied and took joy from just being able to look into His Father's eyes. As Sinclair Ferguson states in the book Holy Holy Holy , "Pure and intense {love} has more power to effect awe, even gracious fear, thank all terror." So, how did Christ show us ultimate {love}? By allowing Himself to be taken out of His face to face intimate relationship with God, He became flesh so that by His life, death, burial, and resurrection He could bring us into the same relationship He shared with God in the weakness of His(Jesus) flesh. Even in His weakness, the {love} he experienced with the Father is greater than any love we could know here on earth. Christ fave up all He had and enjoyed in order to show us unselfish {love}... not only that, He was willing to share that which He had given up. 

   With this at the forefront of our minds, can we honestly say that we {love} others? If we do not {love}, then the {love} Christ showed us which would ultimately bring us into union with Him and the Father, is dead to our life -null, void, not able to cause change, useless- 1 John 4:8 says we do not know God (share in an intimate relationship with Him) if we do not {love}. 

   So, if your wondering how to {love} in a Christlike manner, look up 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 which states...

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it his not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

      Here's a physical show of of {love} between two brothers.....multiply this {love} times an innumerable amount and then you'll have a grasp of how GREAT our Father's {love} is for us.