Love others

Proverbs 10:12 (NLT)

12 Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love makes up for all offenses.

King Solomon tells us hatred is a great mischief-maker, always trying to stir up conflicts and add problems to circumstances. Hatred readily brings a person to do the devil’s work. Hatred takes pleasure in setting neighbors against each other with misrepresentations and lies that create sparks of contention. Love, however, is the great peacemaker and covers a multitude of sins. There are often occasions of discord, but when love enters the picture instead of aggravating the offence, love extinguished the flames of the argument and conceals the sparks of contention. Love will excuse an offense that is often a mistake or done without ill intention. Love recovers peace and quickly restores fellowship.

I started out this morning to write about hatred, but the more I looked at statistics on hatred and quotes and news articles on hatred I began to feel strife being stirred up in myself. I was actually beginning to get angry looking at statistics and news articles about hate. So I’m changing my focus and turned my devotion towards love.

Solomon tells us love makes up for all offences. It is hard to be angry with someone as they face you back in love. I have watched the TV show Intervention before and many times the person facing the intervention will become angry. They feel resentment and they fear what their family is trying to do to them. But as the family expresses their love for the individual the hatred and feelings of resentment often fade. There is nothing like love to quench the feelings that grow from hatred.

I love tell the story of how one day I was just having a miserable day. Every time I would say something negative my wife would just look back at me and say “I love you” and she would just smile. After a while I couldn’t complain any more, but instead had to smile back as she attempted to make me happy through love.

As I said earlier just looking at hate brought up strong emotions. We all should turn away from feelings that stir up hate and instead seek out ways to love people. People who focus on negative thoughts and feelings will often direct their frustrations at others. If the other person is not prepared they will eventually begin to respond to the hatred and a quarrel will break out. Let us all learn to love and seek out positive feelings that are good for us. Allow God to work in our lives to show us where we need to change and how we can love others.