Remember that love is more than just a feeling. It is an action. Sometime I find it hard to feel love for some people. It is like the story of the seminary professor who spent a lot of time lecturing in his class on the importance of loving one another. One day he had a new sidewalk poured in front of his house. The little boy next door was playing outside, and the wet cement was very attractive. He began to play in the wet cement messing it up. The professor chewed the boy out. Some of his students heard about this and asked him in class, “You have been telling us that we ought to love one another, but look how hard you were on that little boy.” And the professor replied, “It’s like this. I love him in the abstract, but I don’t love him in the concrete.” It is hard to feel love toward everybody, but then we are not asked to. We are not commanded to like everyone, but we are commanded to act in love to both the people we like and the ones we do not like. When we are commanded to love as God’s love, it is love characterized by an action. I John 4:9, says, “God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life.” God sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sin. This is love in action. He gave His life for a sinner like me, and I am commanded to love others the same way.
– Dr. Tim Thompson