Hiding Place: An 8-Day Devotional By Tori KellyBeispiel

## HELP US TO LOVE Considering the state of our world, if there’s anything we can all agree on it’s that the we simply need more love. This is said so much nowadays that it makes loving people sound easy to do. Not mistaking love for being kind to strangers, however, when we really commit to love anyone we all know it can be hard and involves great self sacrifice. Personally, I have hurt the people I’ve said I love most, have had the sharpest words with the people closest to me, and have taken for granted the very people that made my life what it is today. We all want to be loving, but which one of us has ever loved perfectly let alone consistently? The truth is we need help! Scripture reveals that we are able to love because he first loved us. We are just like cups that need to be filled before we can ever pour out. Inclined to look out for ourselves first, selfless love is not something that is natural. Jesus is the one example of perfect love. His love enables our love. Jesus IS love. When we needed him most and deserved him the least he gave up everything to save us - his very own life on a cross. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Before we mustered up any effort to love him or his people, and while we were still enemies, Christ died for us! We deserved that spot on the cross but he took our place. That’s a crazy kind of love! I look at Jesus’s life and think there’s no way I can love like that. And it’s true - I can’t. That’s why I need him. I need the Holy Spirit to help me love unconditionally, sacrificially, and selflessly, because that’s the way he loves us. May we look to him and pray, “God help us to love the way that you love me.”