Tonight I want to do two things. First define "love" biblically and second, look at who Paul tells us to love and how we can do so.
First, what is love?
Well verses 9-21 of Romans are one of the examples the Bible gives us of what love is. If you read this section you'll notice that everything Paul says has something in common. All of the defining factors of love put others first. "be devoted to one another", "share with God's people" "Bless those who persecute you" and then the best example "honor one another above yourselves". I think love is best defined as being the act of putting other people's needs above your own. That is what Jesus did when he died for us on the cross, and that is probably the best example of love ever. Period. Loving others means putting their needs above your own at every point of every day. That is really hard to do as we are human, but I think that we should strive to put others first in practical ways in our lives.
Secondly, who do we love?
The first 7 verses of chapter 13 are about submitting to authority and this is the first grouping of people Paul gives us that we can show love to. Remember, love doesn't mean Valentines day romance, it means lifting others up as more important than yourselves. If we are to love authority figures such as government officials and politicians, then we need to do a few things. First, pray for them. Lets be honest, while there are some outstanding men and women leaders throughout the world, all of them need prayer. Our leaders are constantly in danger and are making decisions that affect the world. Also, very few of the politicians worldwide are Christians, yet they are making decisions for countries and peoples. We need to pray for our leaders that they would make righteous decisions as well as find true life in Christ. Next, we should respect them. "For there is no authority except that which God has established". God has placed leaders in place and therefore we are to respect them. I can't answer why God has placed certain, even evil, leaders in power in various places, but we can trust that it is part of his perfect plan.
Not only are we to show love to authority figures, but verses 8-14 says we are to love everyone, all of our "neighbors". This means that all of our family, our friends, our coworkers and even strangers, no matter how bad they may irk us from time to time, are to be shown love by us. Throughout your life I'm sure you have met people whom you haven't liked very much. You are to show them love! There might be people who are mean to you. You are to show them love! There will be those whom are hard to love, but we have explicitly been called to love our neighbors.
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