Becoming A More Loving Person

First Corinthians 13 ends with these familiar words, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Love is also the first fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5. But what is love?
Love is probably the most misunderstood word in the world. Part of the problem is that we use this one word to describe a lot of things. We water down its meaning by overuse. I love my wife. I love America. I love pizza. I love my dog. I love you. I'd love to have my back rubbed. We use the word love in so many different ways that is has, literally, lost its meaning.
It's difficult to give or receive love when you don't even understand what it is. Now, we need to clear up a couple of popular misconceptions about love. Most people think love is a feeling. It's a sentimental knot in your stomach. A quiver in your liver. An ocean of emotion. True, love does produce feelings, but it is more than a feeling.
In a "Peanuts" cartoon, Charlie Brown and Linus are talking, and Linus says, "She was so cute. I used to see her in Sunday School every week. I used to just sit there and stare at her, and sometimes she'd smile at me. Now I hear she's switched churches."
Charlie Brown looks up and says, "That'll change your theology in a hurry!" How often we rely on our feelings, and let our feelings motivate us to do all kinds of things we might not normally do. As I said, love produces feelings, some very powerful ones, but it is more than a feeling.
Another misconception is that love is uncontrollable. Have you ever said. "I fell in love" - as if you had tripped? We just assume that love can't be controlled. "I can't help it if I'm in love. I can't help myself; I'm in love." Or the opposite: "I can't help myself; I just don't love him anymore." We talk as if love is uncontrollable, but the Bible says love is controllable. In fact, Jesus commanded that we love others. His words indicate that we do have control over whom we love and whom we don't love.
Love is a matter of two things: First, love is a matter of choice. The Bible says, "Over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity" (Col. 3:14). Notice those two little words, put on. Love is something we can choose to have. If it were a feeling, we couldn't command it. But we can command a choice. And love is a choice. It is controllable.
The Bible also says that love is a matter of conduct. Love is something we do. It is an action, not a feeling. The Apostle John expressed it this way, "Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth" (1 John 3:18). Too often we love with words or tongue but not with actions. A young man said to his fiancée, "I love you so much I would die for you, my love." She replied, "Oh, Harold, you're always saying that but you never do it."
Love is more than words. It's more than feelings. Unlike us, the Greeks had four words to differentiate different types of love: storge, which means natural affection; eros, which means sexual attraction, philia, which means emotional affection or friendship: and agape, which means unconditional, giving, sacrificial love. When the Bible speaks of God's love for us and the kind of love we're to have for Him and for other people, the word is always agape. It's a commitment to act.
Do you know it's possible to love someone you don't even like? Remember I said in chapter 2 that in order for God to teach us to love. He puts us around some unlovely people. It's easy to love people who are kind and lovely, but God is going to teach us to love, He'll bring some hard-to-love people into our lives. Now the fact is that our lives are full of people we don't like. We don't like the way some people talk. We don't like the way they act. We don't like the way they dress. But most of all, we tend not to like people who don't like us. I once heard a story about Lady Astor, who did not like Winston Churchill. One day she said, "Winston, if you were my husband I'd put arsenic in your tea."

Churchill replied, "Madam, if you were my wife, I'd drink it
If you were to think for sixty seconds, you could probably it!" come up with a list of people you don't like. They would probably be people that you have trouble getting along with. Everyone is hard to love some of the time, even you, but some people are hard to love all of the time.
Jesus never demanded that we have a warm affection for everyone. He didn't have warm emotions for the Pharisees. We don't have to like everyone (isn't that a relief?), but we do have to love them. Well, how do we do that?
The Bible tells us there are five steps we need to take to learn to love people. I'm convinced we can learn to love anyone if we will take these steps.
Before I show you how to genuinely love others, I want you to picture in your mind that person you find hard to love - an obnoxious relative, a troublesome neighbor, or a disagreeable. coworker. How can you learn to love this kind of person? Here are five steps.