Vessels of God’s Love: Growing to Love Others Well

We are called to be vessels of God’s love. And yet still, each of us is a work in progress as we seek to love others well.

We want to grow in this area—or at least we want to want to. Yet as we open ourselves to God’s refining, we may shockingly discover that our love for others is tainted with selfishness or other poisons. We find our hearts still contain impurities revealing self-focus and unhealed wounds.

Learned behaviors we thought were normal affect our daily lives. Ingrained habits plague us. We raise our voices at our children or siblings. We avoid those who rub us wrong. Or perhaps we find ourselves doing things to fulfill the need to be useful, or we assert ourselves wrongly to feel in control. Maybe we busy ourselves to avoid painful emotions.

Even in the many struggles we have, Father God is working to refine us into vessels of His love as we yield to Him.

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We want to be ones who seek the heart of God, showing selfless love to all who we come near. Jesus confirmed this call. When asked about the most weighty of the Commandments, He said that loving God with all and loving others are the two from which all others stem (Matthew 22:36-40).

We realize our attempts to love remain tainted with self-serving. Showing love and honor is not automatic. Because of our tendencies toward selfishness and sin, we must seek to be intentional. We must be mindful of those around us.

If we ask, Father God will reveal ingrained behaviors and help us replace them with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. We must seek to be a blessing in every situation. It will take allowing Him to show us the depths of our souls.

We must cultivate a desire to bring God’s purity and peace wherever we go. We want to have a consecrated heart—hearts set apart to God first. We want this to then be displayed in how we love both Him and others. We want to bring more peace to those in need and leave without disrupting the peace already present.

Our words, moods and actions affect the atmosphere around us. Rather than pollute others through strife or negativity, we want to show love and honor. We must ask the Lord to reveal where our hearts and behaviors need transformation. He will reveal poisonous self-serving, resentful obligation and codependent control in our hearts.

This means we will have to get alone with God, asking Him to teach us and mold us into loving representations of His Son.

As we open to Him, He will open up our eyes to what we cannot see on our own. As we repent of sinful shortcomings and actions, He will cleanse us of impurity. This may even sound painful, but it is a beautiful journey we will never regret.

As we choose to follow His direction, He will beautify us with His love. Our thoughts, words and actions will shine His light into the darkness. He will turn our ashes to beauty as our hearts are refined, displaying His love to all.