Love is for Everyone

God lives and works today. He is the God of love and He wants very much to mold each one of us into the image of His love. Isn't this what we all need? When we can love those around us, our hearts are at peace and we are truly happy.

We make others happy too. But perhaps you ask yourself, how can I become really loving? I just don't have it in me. Listen to the answer in today's meditation by Basilea Schlink called Love is for Everyone.

Everyone can be loving. Is that really true? Perhaps by nature you're too judging or too reserved or especially cold-hearted or egotistical. Well, time again you realize much too late that you've overlooked someone again and in this way have sinned against love.

What can you do about it? If you too are one of those people who would like to be loving to everyone but just can't be, I'd like to share something with you which may be a comfort. Whoever is the least capable of loving actually has the best chance to become a loving person. I know because I'm a living example of someone who couldn't love everyone.

It's God's great joy and triumph to give us what we, by nature, simply don't have. In this way, God wants to prove what He can do. Indeed, that He can do everything.

Nothing is too difficult for Him. In my life, it was always especially important to me that everything be fair. Whenever I was faced with injustices or falsehoods, my love always broke down.

And yet, the Lord, who wanted to make me into a loving person, deliberately brought me into situations where I was a victim of both. I realized that I was totally incapable of following Jesus' commandment to love my enemies and do good to those who had hurt me. Out of my sorrow and repentance over this realization, I began to praise Jesus' victory and claim His redemption over my unlovingness.

And then I experienced, Jesus doesn't just call Himself victor. No, He wants to manifest Himself as the victor in our lives. In the following years, after much prayer, I did experience a change.

When people whom I had only treated well responded with unkindness and slander, I could honestly react in love without any bitterness in my heart. Since this time, my heart has been filled with praise for Jesus, because He gives precisely those who aren't cut out to be loving a true, warm, forgiving, overflowing, and enduring love. What an overwhelming comfort! Jesus died and rose again in order to free us from our unlovingness.

Therefore, we have a right to come to Him and pray, Lord Jesus, this is what You came to earth for. You have won this love for us through Your suffering and dying and resurrection. It belongs to us.

Therefore, I claim it for myself in faith. I am redeemed. To love You set me free.

I am redeemed. You won the fight for me. Redeemed from heartless envy, pride, and self-display.

The foes of love must flee now far away. I am redeemed. You have been listening to a program written by Basilea Schlink of the Little Land of Canaan.

To learn more about how God lives and works today, visit us at our website www.canaan.org. If you contact us, we would be happy to send you a free inspirational booklet. If you do not have access to the web, please contact this radio station for our postal address. God bless you.