love one another chalk written on concrete floor — Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Welcome to the 51st post of The Aim and Soar Life, a weekly Christian personal growth and lifestyle newsletter that provides actionable, relatable, and biblically rooted content to help you live abundantly and GROW YOU. GOD’S WAY.

Greetings!

We only have a few more days left in the month! Isn’t that just crazy? I hope you have enjoyed all the posts related to GOOD LOVE, the theme for the month.

God’s love is the epitome of good love! And guess what? He wants us to love as He loves. Mark 12:30-31 paints a picture of what God expects from us. Jesus was teaching us to love without limits!

³⁰Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31, NIV

But how do we train our brains to love the way God asks us to love? I’m glad you asked! Here are three things you can put into practice right now:

1. You Must Be Faithful to God

When I think of God’s love, I think of faithfulness. No matter how many times we let God down, He doesn’t just toss us aside and forget about us. He doesn’t throw us away. He doesn’t “cancel” us. If He did, most of us would be in serious trouble. Me first.

Practicing faithfulness to God enables us to forgive others. No, you won’t be perfect or get it right all the time, but you must set your heart to be faithful to God.

If only we would do what Jesus told us in Mark 12:30-31, we would get better at forgiving others. Why? Because when all our attention is focused on God and doing what He asks of us, we become more like Him.

As you obey Him, you will long to please Him even more. You will want to make God smile. So even when you don’t want to do something, you will do it because it’s what God wants. And forgiveness my friend is one of those things.

2. Forgive Because

Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t hold grudges like we sometimes do? Have you ever been wronged by someone and found it difficult or nearly impossible to forgive them and let it go?

I have, and it was troubling to my spirit because I know that if I expect God to forgive me, I must forgive others. I had to learn to love without limits—the way God loves us.

¹⁴For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6:14-15, NIV

I am so glad that God doesn’t hold grudges the way I have held grudges in the past.

A few years ago, my mother pointed out to me that I hadn’t forgiven a family member for something that had happened years ago. The family member had offended my mom and therefore offended me. My mom had forgiven the person and continued with the relationship. Meanwhile, I had not. She told me I had been holding a grudge and she was right!

I had to pray about the situation because I knew I couldn’t afford (and neither can you) to not be forgiven by God!

This has been said a million times before, but I must repeat it, so I will. Forgiveness is for you! It doesn’t matter if the offending party doesn’t ask for or care about being forgiven. We forgive because God said so.

3. Love People As You Love Yourself

This command from Jesus is a doozy!

To begin with, when you consider that your “neighbor” could be anyone in your immediate community, extended community, or the global community, this would include people you don’t like. It would also include mean people on the internet who are rude and nasty to you for no reason. What about the co-worker who seems to undermine you every chance he/she gets?

How do you love these kinds of people? I can tell you right now it takes a gigantic dose of patience.

It’s easy to love those that are nice and kind to us, but in the spirit of keeping it real, everyone isn’t going to like you or be nice to you. However, you’ve got to be spiritually mature enough to love them anyway.

Loving a person is being respectful, keeping the peace with them, and showing them kindness, even if it seems that they don’t deserve it.

I want to note that in my perspective limits and boundaries are different. I associate limits with external factors such as the way people behave or don’t, which may cause us not to love them, respect them, etc. On the other hand, I view boundaries as protective standards we hold to keep us from being harmed. With that being said, loving without limits does not mean allowing someone to place you in danger, or to harm you emotionally or physically. Please use boundaries to always ensure your emotional and physical safety. God desires for you to be safe.

I am working on loving without limits more consistently. It is a process for me. When I see the evil some people commit without remorse, especially when it comes to harming innocent children, it is sometimes hard for me to pray for these offenders. However, I continue to ask God to help me honor His word. I keep looking to Him because I can’t do it on my own. Loving without limits can only be done through Him.

Let’s practice, faithfulness, forgiveness, and love without limits this week with His help.

Peace and Love to You!

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Until Next Time,

GROW YOU. GOD’S WAY.

Sherrhonda😍

P.S.

I’d LOVE for you to meet me on the web:

www.sherrhondadenice.com

email: sherrhonda@sherrhondadenice.com

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