By Krystal Kuehn, MA, LPC, LLP, NCC
Everything that love is can be summed up in three words: God is love.
When we walk in the attributes of love, we are actually allowing God’s love to work in and through us. We are abiding in God and he is abiding in us. The clearest evidence of God’s love in our lives is seen in our relationships. If we love one another, we will live a life of genuine love. And how do we love one another? We show respect, patience, kindness, and understanding. We give and share of ourselves and our possessions. We are considerate, caring, and forgiving. We do not judge, slander, and manipulate others. Instead, we love as God loves. God is the source of all human love and he gives us the power to love. When God’s love abides in us, we can love him with our whole being. We can have healthy self-love. And, we can love people whom God created in his own image. There is something beautiful, special, and unique that God put in each and every one of us that is his personal signature. And, he has so much love for each of us to express and experience.
Is something keeping you from loving others? Sometimes we want to hold on to our anger, hurts, and attitudes. We might not want to show respect for someone who has not earned it, or forgive someone who has hurt us. We might think others owe us, or we have unfair expectations of them. We might allow jealousy and envy to keep us from loving others. We might have established bad habits of criticizing, gossiping, and slandering people. If anything is keeping us from loving others, it is keeping us from living with the joy of true love. It is something we must deal with if we want to experience the fullness of God’s love.
Do you want to live a life of love? If you are in God and he is in you, you can be assured that you have all the love you will ever need. It is not more love that we need; it is less hate, fear, judgment, criticism, selfishness, disrespect, bad habits, rebellion, unkindness, and so on, that we need. To live a life of love requires us to choose love and let it change us so that all that is hurtful to our relationships and opposes love in us no longer has power in our lives. The best way to do this is to know God is love, and to put his love into practice. Each new day is a new opportunity to practice love and experience the wholeness and joy it can bring. Love is the greatest of all life’s gifts. The power of love is amazing and never-ending. It can motivate, energize, inspire, and strengthen. Love can do in a person what nothing else can do. Love has the power to revive and change lives, restore relationships, and bring healing. All else may fail, but love never fails.
Understanding the attributes of love and putting love into practice is what the Love Workshop is all about. It is founded upon the principles of God’s love. And it is the key to true and lasting happiness.
Wishing you a life of genuine love & joy,
Krystal
