The Greatest of These Is…

I’m so glad you decided to begin this study! At one time or another, all of us deal with certain people or relationships that add stress and make our lives difficult. But how we respond in these situations can make all of the difference. When we choose to truly love people, it leads to change and breakthrough in not only our lives, but the lives of those around us.

What is love? Love is what motivates people to get up each day and keep going. Love gives life purpose and meaning. People in the world are looking for love, but they are really looking for God because He is love (see 1 John 4:16). God cannot do anything but love because love is what He is and who He is.

It also helps to know what love is not. Love is not talk or theory, and it’s not simply a sermon. It may produce feelings, but it is much more than a feeling, because we can love by choice even when the feeling of love is absent.

See, we don’t have to feel like doing the right thing in order to do it. This is what it means to love people who are hard to love. It means to treat them as Jesus would treat them, no matter how they have treated us. As Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34 NKJV).

For instance, my father abused me and my mother abandoned me to the sexual abuse my father perpetrated on me, yet God asked me to take care of them as they got older. I’ll confess that I was never once excited to go to their assisted living apartment and eventually to the nursing home to visit them. But I went because I knew it was the loving thing to do. I didn’t “feel” like spending my hard-earned money on them, but Dave and I still bought their clothing, made sure they had groceries, took them to medical and dental appointments, and helped them in other ways.

So I want to ask: Where does loving people fit into your list of priorities? Are there individuals in your life God’s calling you to love, even if you don’t necessarily feel like it? As we begin this journey, I encourage you to keep these questions close to your heart and see where God is leading you.

Practice Loving Others

As we practice loving people on purpose, we will develop the habit of loving others. However, people who don’t make a priority of loving will find that love is not their default behavior.

If you want to love people, you will need to take time to listen to them and find out what they want and need. Do they need encouragement? Do they need financial help? Do they need to be included in family activities because they are single, widowed, or lonely? We usually assume that people need and like what we do, but we are all different and everyone feels loved in different ways.

My husband loves sports and I don’t care much about them or know much about them. In fact, sports would be the last topic I would love to have a long conversation about, but recently Dave and I went to lunch and I spent our time together asking him sports questions and letting him go on and on about the various qualities of different players and their records.

Nothing gives people more joy than feeling loved. We can tell someone we love them, and it is meaningful, but when they feel loved, it is much, much better. People will always remember how you made them feel when they were with you, even if they forget what you said or did.

Now, I don’t consider my husband to be someone who is difficult to love, but the same principle applies. Love is a choice, and we can develop a habit of loving others if we choose to do it. Instead of always thinking, Oh no, it’s that person again, we can make a new habit of finding ways to be good to them.

Romans 12:21 says that we overcome evil with good. Love is the greatest thing in the world, and it has the power to change even the hardest of hearts and defeat the enemy and his plans here on earth.

Adapted from the book Loving People Who Are Hard to Love by Joyce Meyer. Copyright 2022 by Joyce Meyer. Published by Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Prayer Starter:

“Lord, as I start this study, I ask for Your help to begin seeing the people in my life in a whole new way. Please open my eyes to others’ needs and help me to make a habit of finding ways to be good to them. I can’t do it in my own strength, but I ask for Your help to change the way I think, speak and act around those I would normally see as ‘difficult to love.’ In Jesus’ name, amen.”