Cultivating A Lifestyle of Love

by Rita Langeland
© 2003 Hidden With Christ Ministries

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us…(Ephesians 5:1-2a NASB)

Dwight L. Moody was an American evangelist in the latter part of the 1800’s. He once told the story of a little boy in Chicago who attended Sunday School at a particular church. When his parents moved to the other side of that large city, the young boy continued to attend that same Sunday School even though it meant a very long and tiresome walk each way. Someone asked him, “Why do you walk all that way when there are plenty of good churches closer to your home?” The young boy replied, “Because they love a fellow over there.” Love was the magnet that drew the young boy to that church. Love should be the most outstanding characteristic of our lives as Christians. And it should be the hallmark of our churches. What would it look like if we intentionally cultivated a lifestyle of love? Jesus gave us some insight into this in the Gospel of Matthew. The Amplified translation of Matthew 5:43-48 reads this way:

You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy; But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, to show that you are the children of your Father Who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and makes the rain fall upon the upright and the wrongdoers [alike]. For if you love those who love you, what reward can you have? Do not even the tax collectors do that? And if you greet only your brethren, what more than others are you doing? Do not even the Gentiles (the heathen) do that? You, therefore, must be perfect [growing into complete maturity of godliness in mind and character, having reached the proper height of virtue and integrity], as your heavenly Father is perfect.

If you are going to intentionally cultivate a lifestyle of love, you will have to pursue both loving your neighbor and loving your enemies. Someone once said, “It is natural to love those who love you, but it is supernatural to love those who hate you.” God has given us His supernatural love and placed it in our hearts when we were born again. Romans 5:5 teaches us this truth: ...the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (NASB)

The key to cultivating a lifestyle of love is making the choice to uncap the reservoir of agape love that exists inside of you. Agape love, (the God-kind of love) is a decisive love that chooses to love the unlovely, the ungodly, the hateful and those who have mistreated you. God has called us to this radical lifestyle of love but He doesn’t expect us to try to muster up enough human love to do the job! He has given us His supernatural love so that we can see people with His eyes of love and then love them with the strength of His perfect love.

Few people aspire to live this kind of life. Most Christians feel very satisfied if they simply avoid wronging others. They assume that this fulfills God’s command to love one another. But this love that we have been called to requires much more than an avoidance of treating others badly. It is a conscious decision to pour out unconditional love on those who have mistreated us.

An outstanding example of this “decisive love” was demonstrated in East Germany. The former Communist dictator, Erich Honecker had been ousted from office and even dismissed from his own political party. After undergoing medical treatment for cancer, he was discharged from the hospital but had no where to go. His previous home had been in a villa provided by the government. With this no longer available to him, he and his wife Margot were homeless. This couple was hated by the people of East Germany because of the harshness of their Communist regime. Margot Honecker had ruled the educational system in Germany for 26 years, making sure that very few Christians were ever allowed to pursue a higher education. Yet it was a Christian pastor and his wife who took this despised couple into their own home. Pastor Uwe Holmer and his wife were the parents of ten children. Eight of those children had applied for further education over the years and all of them had been denied. When asked why he would take such detestable people into his home, the pastor pointed to Jesus’ command to love your enemies. He believed it applied to just such a case. Love is a choice. The Holmers chose to love. Love requires action. The Holmers acted out their love by their sacrificial gift of hospitality to those who had mistreated them. We are called to this same radical lifestyle of love.

After hearing me teach on this subject of love at a minister’s conference, a young African pastor asked if he could speak with me. He was visibly upset and asked me to help him reverse a mistake he had made. A thief had broken into his church and stolen 18 wooden benches which were the congregation’s only seats.The young pastor was disturbed after hearing the teaching on “loving your enemies” because he had led his church to pray against the thief, asking God to make him miserable. It was not a prayer of blessing but a prayer to curse the man. He humbly asked what he could do to reverse the situation. I told him that in comparison with the value of the man’s soul to God, those benches which the church desperately needed, were nothing. God could easily replace 18 wooden benches, but could He find anyone in that African city to pray fervently with God’s own heart of love for that thief to be saved, set free from bondage and filled with God’s love? I suggested that he go back to his congregation and explain that God had called them to be a people of love and that they could begin by loving the thief that had broken into their church.

I encouraged them to pray for the dramatic conversion of the thief and then accept him in to their church with joy as a testimony of God’s perfect love and power to change the worst of sinners. After giving him the money to replace the stolen benches, I suggested he use it to demonstrate to his church that not only can God restore what was robbed from the church, He can also restore what Satan has robbed from a man’s life. God’s love compels us to pray for those who wrong us. A person cultivating a lifestyle of love is one that treats every negative situation as an opportunity to express God’s love. A few weeks after that young pastor led his congregation to begin praying for the thief, a stranger walked into their church service for the first time. He sat through the service and at the end, he gave his heart to Christ. He asked the pastor, "Are you sure that God forgives every sin?" After the pastor reassured him that God's Word promises that it is so, the man admitted, "I ask you because I am the thief that stole the benches from the house of God." God's love had prevailed and restored both the man and the benches!

Author C.S. Lewis wrote these words in his book Mere Christianity: “ Do not waste your time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor, act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.” Love is a choice and love requires action. The person cultivating a lifestyle of love always chooses love-filled actions.

Part of cultivating a lifestyle of love is to seek to be a blessing everywhere you go. Many people need to begin at home. Do not assume that those in your family or other close relationships know and feel your love for them. Your love must be demonstrated in actions and words on a consistent and continual basis. Don’t be like the old farmer who was shocked when his wife of forty years left him, explaining that she was tired of being in a loveless marriage. He simply replied, “But I told her I loved her the day I married her, wasn’t that enough?” Pursue planting words and actions of love and blessing in your marriage and family every single day of your life. Create an atmosphere of love in your home and you will raise children who will also cultivate a lifestyle of love as they mature.

Look for ways to be a blessing even to strangers, because you never know how that demonstration of love can touch another person’s life. When I travel to Africa, I always tell the team that accompanies me to bring a variety of gifts to give to people as the Lord directs. So we pack our suitcases with gifts for people we don’t even know, preparing in advance to be a blessing. God is always looking for ways to bless us and we have been called to be imitators of God and to walk in love everywhere we go. Cultivate a lifestyle of love. It’s the only way to live!

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