Welcome back to our blogs on love!  Last week, we looked at loving God, but this week I want to think about how we can love each other.  
 
There are so many people in our lives; friends, family, neighbours, people we go to school with, people at church or GB... Do we really love them?  Do we really have to love them all?  
 
Some of them are easy to love, maybe a parent who always supports us, or that friend who is always there for us, but what about the people who are really hard to love?  
 
What about that person in class who is rude and disruptive, or your neighbour who never smiles at you?  
 
Why do we have to love them?  We love them, because God loves us – God is love! 
 
I’m an Officer in my GB company and this year, I’ve been looking at God and some of His characteristics with our Juniors.  While we have learnt all these things over the years, that God is patient, God is kind, God is faithful, it’s been great to talk through these again with our girls, to help teach them how great our God is, and to remind me too!  And of course, we’ve looked at how God is love.  God does so much more than show love, He really is love itself! 
 
So how does God teach us to love through His Word, the Bible? 
 
In Matthew 5:44 we are told “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  It’s never easy to love our enemies, but what about those who persecute us?  This means people who want to harm or hurt us.  We can look at terrible tragedies on the news, bombings and countries fighting one another, and wonder why they hate each other so much that they would want to harm each other.  It is so far from God’s plans for the world, and His desire that we love one another. 
 
It's our responsibility, as girls and women growing up getting to know God, to help those around us and those further away, to turn them towards God and in doing so, to help them love one another. 
 
With next Tuesday being Valentine’s Day, it got me thinking about why it’s important to love each other.
 
We love each other because Jesus loves us, but what do we mean by this?  Jesus loved, and still loves every single one of us so much that He gave up His life just for us.  Jesus died a painful death, more painful than we can even imagine, being tortured on a cross. He did all this and He did it willingly. He died for every one of us.  Jesus lived a blameless life but despite this, He gave it up so that we can live.  
 
In John 15:12-13, Jesus said “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.” 
 
While hopefully none of us today will have to lay down our lives for our friends, there are so many ways in which we can show love to people in our lives.  We can give them a hug if they’re feeling sad, we can give them words of encouragement, we can help people when they need it – even if that means helping do the dishes!  
 
We can help in school, maybe helping a teacher tidy up after class, or helping to explain something to someone who is struggling, even a smile will brighten up someone’s day! 
 
We can help people we don’t know, maybe help an elderly person at the supermarket, spend time with someone you know who is lonely, or if you can, give money to help people who are homeless or who are struggling.  
 
We can help people at church too, maybe sitting with someone who normally sits alone, making a meal for someone who has just got out of hospital, and of course, praying for anyone who is struggling!  
 
And to be honest, helping others makes us feel better too, it gives us all a little bit of joy to brighten up our day.  
 
But what about people who are hard to love?  Maybe these people never thank us when we try to help them, maybe they’ve been rude to us in the past, maybe we’ve fallen out with them in the past. 
 
What if we think of these people in a different way?  What if these people are actually, instead of the hardest to love, the most in need of love?  Maybe these people, the neighbour who never says hello, the annoying person in school, are really the people who need us to show them some love.  
 
And what better love can we show than Christian love, the ultimate love that we have learnt from our Saviour, Jesus Christ. 
 
So, even if you forget everything else, remember this – when it’s hard to love, love harder.