How to start somone’s love

This is the second post in the Others-oriented fruit of the Spirit series. The topic is love. Get future posts delivered to you for free by grabbing the RSS feed or email updates.

Love has the power to procreate faster than a Catholic embryo. And I don’t mean procreating babies. I mean procreating love. Once love starts, love spreads. But it needs to start somewhere.

As far as I know, love is always the result of love. The only exception is God’s love. Otherwise, no one loves without first being loved or receiving something. This is a clue for how to start it.

The first example

“We love Him because He first loved us.” -John 4:19

God gave us a perfect example of how love starts and spreads. First, God loved us and showed it (Romans 5:8). As a result, those who believed it, loved God in return.

So…

Q. How can you get others to love?

A. Love them.

It sounds simple. It is. The difficultly comes not in understanding but in living it.

I know a few friends who’ve used this on me. It works. One in particular snagged my email address and started sending me emails once a week or so. He sent broadcast emails, which worked because I didn’t necessarily have to reply. He stayed interested in me by talking about my life and my interests. So I stayed interested in him.

I wouldn’t have otherwise grown very close with this guy – he just wasn’t really on my radar. But as a result of his initiative to start interacting with me, we developed a fairly close friendship. I was open to loving others, but his initiative jump-started the whole exchange.

Through his example, I’ve tried to do the same for others, initiating interaction and showing I care. His initiative didn’t just spread back to himself – it spread outward too. I’ve seen this happen multiple times in other situations also. Loving others gets others to love.

How is this about receiving the Spirit?

“Hold it, Marshall. In the intro to the fruit of the Spirit, you said it’s not about trying for the fruit – it’s about receiving the Spirit. Aren’t we just trying for the fruit here?”

Nope – we’re giving the Spirit. God is love (1 John 4:8). That’s how we get others to love. We give them God. We help them experience God. We point them to God through love. Once they realize God’s love for them through us, the natural response is that they will love.

I’m convinced that our love for others, not our argument for the accuracy of the Bible, is the most compelling proof of God. It works.

Serving Suggestions:

(1) Single out one person you can love this week and get that person to start loving. Make it your mission. So often we want to complain that others don’t love when we’ve not given any serious thought (much less action) to helping them learn to love or igniting love in them.

(2) Commit to it. This isn’t a fly-by-night deal. It takes time and effort, but the time and effort will pay off in the long run. You won’t reach any results if you go into it thinking it’ll happen overnight.