Impact Your CitySample

Love Well

Your life should be marked by loving well, being hospitable, and walking in your giftedness. Peter says, "I want you to love, because love covers over a multitude of sins." This doesn’t mean that you loving somebody gets their sins forgiven. That’s not what he is saying. You’re not Jesus. You can't forgive sins. It does mean that because of Jesus Christ in your life, because of the understanding that He's coming back, you are going to love well. 

Our church loves well. I love how our church loves. If you go through a difficult time, our church will come around and love you well. If you go through grief, they will love you. I hear people say it all the time, that they don’t know how they would get through difficult times without their church family. The church is a family that comes around to love. There was a man named Darren at our Downtown campus. Darren had struggled with homelessness and addiction. He went to Open Door Mission, an organization our church has a partnership with, and they began to tell him about our Bible study. So he said he needed all the help he could get and agreed to attend. Billy, one of our volunteers from the Downtown campus, is an active member and also a volunteer at Open Door Mission. She was connected and helped Darren. She told him, "You need to get involved in a church." So Darren showed up at our Downtown campus. Even though he was struggling with addiction and was homeless, he showed up! Darren was baptized at our Downtown campus and our church has loved on him. We love what God's doing in his life. 

That's a testimony of loving well, isn't it? Of a volunteer from our campus to be able to go out and volunteer somewhere else. God wants you to be out amongst the city being used by Him in those ways. That is a form of loving well. Peter is referring to an agape love – that it covers over, it endures, it's tough. When you don't know if you can go any further, this agape love takes you further.