A Resolution to Love

“Beloved, let us love one another,  for love is of God  and  everyone  who  loves is  born of  God  and  knows  God.” 1 John 4:7  (NKJV)

For some reason, New Year’s resolutions are often short-lived. We make them, and in a few days—perhaps a few weeks—after trying to keep them, we slip up, and soon we go on as if we had never made them. If this has happened to you, don’t feel ashamed of your track record; we’re all in  this together.

We tend not to keep our resolutions  because of problems with the resolutions themselves. For one thing,  they are often  simple and inconsequential, desired cosmetic changes  that don’t make a major difference in our lives or in the world around us.  We plan to make  external changes, perhaps in the way we look or would like to look to others.

In our focus text, we have a real basis for  a new year’s resolution: love.  It is love that  constrains us to do and hope for changes that are worthwhile, changes that  work from the inside out. To make our journey through the year a joy-filled one, we  need to demonstrate love—love to God, love for others, and love for ourselves. The range of love is broad and has a divine source; therefore, when we make a resolution to love, we are destined to succeed.  It’s the kind of desire that God looks at favorably and is willing to give us the power  to  achieve.

There may be someone  within our circle of influence who is difficult to love, but if our heartfelt resolution is to love everyone, God will provide the power and the opportunities to  make it happen.  Our God of love  will honor a resolution that  sets before Him  a desire to love  a particular person, despite that individual’s unlovable ways. He will provide the grace to help us make an attitude change. And it will happen if we are “born of God” and “know God.”

With a heart set on following the directive in our focus text, let us resolve this year to love one another  and surprise ourselves halfway through the year to find that we’re loving everyone—including the unloving and the seemingly unlovable ones—because we have been born of God, who is love.

Always,

Judith

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“Let brotherly [and  sisterly] love
continue.”
Hebrews 13:1