Five First Steps to Building a Life of Love
By Rick Warren
“Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” Ephesians 5:2 (MSG)
I’ve been on this earth for a while now, and I’m still convicted by God about how little I really know about love. The fact is, we all have a lot of growing to do as we continue maturing in God’s love.
So how do you build a life of real, deep love? You’ll spend the rest of your life trying to live out the answer. But I can give you some steps to get you out of the starting block—five things you can do this week that will help you get on the road to becoming a person of great love.
Learn how mature love acts and responds. Personal change always begins with a change in perspective. You need to get God’s perspective on what love is really like, because the world knows nothing about real, deep love. You gain that perspective by getting into God’s Word.
Start your day with a daily reminder to love. The first 10 minutes of the day set your mood for the rest of the day. Resolve to get up in the morning and say, “God, help me to remember that the most important thing is loving you and loving other people. If I don’t get anything else done today besides loving you and the people that you put around me, then this has not been a wasted day.”
Memorize what God says about love. God’s Word is filled with truths and principles on how to become a loving person. The problem is, when you’re in a situation where you’re tempted to be unloving, your Bible is usually at home on a shelf. That’s why you need to memorize Scripture, so that God can bring verses to mind when you need them the most.
Practice acting in unselfish, loving ways. Love is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more it develops. If you want to become a truly loving person, then you have to intentionally do some things that may seem awkward at first. But the more you practice, the more love becomes second nature, and you become a genuinely loving person.
Get support from other loving people. If you’re just sitting in your room and reading a book, then you’re not going to get very far in learning how to love. You only learn love in connection to others, in the context of community. That’s one of the reasons why a small group is so important! It puts you in situations where you can grow, as you see godly love modeled for you and as you practice serving others in unselfish, loving ways.
You’ll never learn to love by just sitting in solitude. You’ll learn love in relationship with God and with other people.
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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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