Let’s get real. It’s hard to love people who think differently than us. It’s challenging to love those who have hurt us. 

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 16:14, “Let all that you do be done in love.” This isn’t easy, especially when we understand our source of love is God (1 John 4:8) and NOT our personal and cultural views of love. This love thing can be confusing.

FIVE COMMITMENTS

In 2025, The Harbor Church in Odessa, Florida, will embark on a journey to raise our capacity to love God’s way and in His truth through five commitments:

1: Commit to knowing God’s love. (1 John)

2: Commit to following God’s love. (Matthew 22:37-40)

3: Commit to living God’s love daily. (1 Corinthians 13)

4: Commit to giving thanks for God’s love. (Psalm 107, 136)

5: Commit to evaluating God’s love in me. (Psalm 139:23-24)

We will use these commitments as a spiritual barometer to help us remember that “our capacity to love, in God’s truth, only goes as far as our willingness to love the person we struggle with the most.” 

THE STRUGGLE

Here is the crazy part. Sometimes, we will struggle to love God. We won’t like His ways of loving. Unfortunately, we can, and if we are not careful, we will start believing we know better how to love. 

Sometimes, we will struggle to love other people. People will hurt us. Some will disappoint us. Resentment, unforgiveness, and anger can and will grow and destroy us from the inside out. 

And sometimes, we will struggle to love ourselves. We will become raging codependents, losing ourselves to people pleasing in hopes that someone will love us back. It’s an unhealthy insanity cycle.  

The bottom line is God’s way to love is much healthier than our way. We need to be willing to listen, learn, and live out His loving ways.

PRAYER

That’s why the commitment to love is so important. You can join Tonya and me on this journey to raise our capacity to love by completing and trying to live out the five love capacity commitments. 

All those who fill out the card will be prayed for each week throughout 2025. That’s right; you can embark on The Love Capacity journey with confidence, knowing others are praying for your success. ‘

Let’s raise our capacity to love God, others, and ourselves. What can we lose: resentment, unforgiveness, codependency, anger, and bitterness? I think all of us want to get rid of that baggage.