Thursday

The Bible Says Love Is a Skill

Love is a skill that can be learned. In other words, it's something you can get good at and that means you get better at love by practicing love.

You may think you're a good lover, but God wants you to become a great lover, a skilled lover, a master lover. Yet, most people never learn how to love.

You can become an expert at relationships. Wouldn't you like to become known as a person of extraordinary love? When people speak of you they might say: "He doesn't care who you are or what you look like." "She doesn't care where you've been or what you've done or where you're from."

The only way you get skilled at something is to practice. You do it over and over. The first time you do it, it feels awkward, but the more you do it, the better you become.

The same is true with love. (1 John 4:7) Let's practice loving each other. As the Bible says, "Practice these things; be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident to all." (1 Timothy 4:15 HCSB)

Today's devotional is pretty much self-explanatory: love is a skill that we can practice.
And as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Well, not completely perfect as God's love for us.
This week's previous devotion also discussed love, pointing out that God gave us a choice to love, and whom to love.
Love is not just the words "I love you" but shown more powerfully through actions (the whole actions-speak-louder-than-words thing).
And today, it's that when we love, we should be attaining for one that selflessly loves, no matter who the person is, and how she/he
may be different from others, so there shouldn't be any favoritism in love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

People think that it is easy to love someone like God, because they think that they just need to say, "I love you." But it isn't that easy, because love isn't something you get good at automatically. You need to practice loving others to become a lover like God. If you practice, then people will notice your love more evidently. So, to begin practising love, we can hang out with those who we usually don't talk to, and help them out during troubled times. If we start practising love, we can be a step closer to being like God.

I find it extremely easy to love people who are friendly and charismatic, but it's so difficult for me to love annoying, mean and ESPECIALLY CLINGY people. There's a verse in the Bible that says we're no better than non-Christians if we only love those who love us because even the most evil, selfish people can do that. What sets us apart from the world is our Christ-like love for all people, especially those who wrong us. I think the hardest people to love are clingy people because if you pay any attention to them they'll just take it way too far too fast and then I feel trapped in that horrible relationship (person A is extremely dependent and needy and the person B doesn't want to hurt person A, but they also want to get away) that I never wanted and can't get out of. I have a situation like that right now and I don't know how to be loving to that person, but at the same time not have them be so clingy and overbearing. Ughh, I probably sound like a jerk but I know you've all had this kind of situation and I don't know how to address it without hurting feelings or me eventually not being able to stand that other person. I guess I really need to practice how to love like God because I don't think I'm doing the best job atm. There's actually a few people in my life who I strongly dislike and God says we should always be forgiving and loving... Gotta pray about that.

The devo explained how love is a skill, and like any other skill, practice is needed to improve. Take for example becoming a surgeon; people can't simply become one without the proper education and practice- in the same way we need to learn about God's love for us and truly grasp that idea of His unconditional love- his perfect love. Learning however also must be accompanied with practice, so we can grow our skill of loving both God and one another.

In terms of love being a skill, I think it develops in the sense that you make your love less "circumstantial." It's sort of love more like "love" in the sense that it induces you to do stupid things for the better being of that person. Stupid as in you disregard the circumstances and try to make things better. To illustrate: you and your lover are both on one side of a wall, and your lover wants to get to the other. Your solution is to ignore the wall, and just get to the other side: it's an illogical idea, but that'd be your perception, so you'd most likely just knock the wall down and get to the other side without pay much attention to the wall.

I've always thought love is something that's irrational, and removing all your rationalization from love would make it actual genuine love.

Point is: don't rationalize to love.

Developing this skill begins with getting out of your comfort zone.
If you only love those who are easy to love, than that does not mean you are a loving person....It just means you favour some more than others.
Everyone can practice this by taking action. Little by little, you get better.
I've been working on that this week and i've reflected on who is the person I want to target this week.
Of course there is going to be that one person that comes to mind.
Im not sure for you guys, but for me I tend to just overall like some more than others.
I'm not the kind to build mortal enemies...im pretty sure that will make it harder to love.
But anyways, show God's love through yourself and that way you can also feel his love as well!

ok, im really tired. I just finished my homework.
~Audrey~