Walking in Love

Can I talk a little bit about walking in love today?

Walking in love is a concept, or really a command that I've heard in church for a long time. I mean, the word love itself is mentioned roughly 310 times in the Bible. In the book of Matthew, Jesus explains to the Pharisees the first and greatest commandment is to, "love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind." (22:37 NLT) He then adds that there's a second commandment to complement the first, "Love your neighbor as yourself." (22:39 NLT)

And every time I'd hear it, I would be like, "Okay yeah that's easy. That's cool," and try being nice on my own strength. "I can do that."

So to me, I believed walking in love was: Suppressing truth to spare someone's feelings. Always wanting to be around people. Always being appearing to happy. Saying you forgive someone and act right around them, but you still harbor bitterness or unrest when you're alone. Letting people walk over you, because, I love you... right?

Uh... not quite.

I realized if I tried to walk in love on my own strength, I'd fail every. single. time. Sometimes you want to side-eye the people that deserve it. Sometimes you want to cut up on people... because they deserve it. That's the easy part. But truth is, in order to walk in love there has to be a level of spiritual maturity that you cannot possess without drawing near to God. That's where Matthew 22:37-39 comes in - you can't do one without the other. You first must love God, (I mean really, not just Philippians 4:13 in your Instagram bio) and love others as you love yourself. And that's the gag: If you don't love God, you can't love/walk in love with others. And if you can't love others, you can't love yourself.

When you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, He transforms the way you think about yourself. You really start to look at yourself as He sees you: valued, forgiven, redeemed, spotless, precious, beautiful, loved. And when you start to recognize that you are that DEAL, you then can go out and see others as the same - through God's love.

So then, and only then will walking in love starts to look like: speaking words of kindness and truth to others. Forgiving others wholeheartedly. Checking your attitude when someone has you messed up. Being obedient to God's voice when you really don't want to or don't know why. There must be a desire in your heart to let God have total control over your words, thoughts, and actions.

You have to choose to walk in love. It's a decision you make when God opens your eyes in the morning. "Thank you for waking me up Lord. Help me walk in love today." Boom, step one done. Now the next step is actually living it out - or walking it out. Some days can be tougher than others, and that's okay. That's a sign that you're doing something maybe just a little bit right. And if it seems like it's too much because, momma ain't raise no punk, ask the Holy Spirit to remind you that with His help you can embody all His fruits, "... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control." (Gal. 5:22 NLT)

Peace +GLOW Always,

"And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

- Ephesians 5:2 (ESV)

#walkinginlove #lifestyle