Loving Others Like God Loves Us

I used to think I understood what it meant to love people who were hard to love. I showed up in small ways, and my heart was in the right place. My family gave gifts for struggling families at Christmas, served food at shelters, and sang at assisted living homes. Those were sincere efforts, and they mattered.

Yet, I didn’t understand a deeper kind of love—one that enters someone’s pain. Only when devastation came to my family did I begin to grasp what love really asks. Love is stepping into someone’s pain and allowing them to step into mine.

I thought I knew how to love. But the people who surrounded me during that season taught me what it meant to love like Jesus. After I re-read the parable of the Good Samaritan, everything shifted for me.

I had always noticed how the priest walked by the beaten, half-dead man. But this time, I saw something else. The Levite paused and looked, but he still walked away. Maybe he was afraid. Or could it be that he was just following the priest? But Christ-like love doesn’t just look—it takes action. True love stops to serve.

The Samaritan, despised and dismissed by society, saw a man bleeding on the road. He stopped and treated him like a sacred being. He soothed the wounds with oil, wrapped them in bandages, and lifted the broken body onto his own donkey. He carried him to safety and covered the cost, promising the innkeeper more if needed.

When I was the one lying on the road—hurt, alone, and struggling to breathe, I saw my younger self in those who walked past. I realized how easy it is to misunderstand pain when you’re not the one feeling it.

My loved ones became extraordinary Samaritans. They were people who saw me. They treated my wounds as sacred. Their presence, their bandages, and their help were the hands of Jesus.

Loving others like God loves us doesn’t always look heroic. It starts by seeing someone’s pain instead of passing by it. This is followed by the willingness to move toward the pain with whatever we have to offer: a word, a meal, a ride, a resource. The point isn’t perfection. It is presence. It’s staying near and not looking away.

God’s love flowed to me through others. And now, it’s my turn to let that love flow through me—not perfectly, but with intentionality.

It’s your turn too. You don’t have to get it all right. Just show up and let His love move through you.

Application Questions:

• Is there someone near you who feels unseen or forgotten?
• What small step could you take to move toward them?

Prayer:

"Lord, you are the God who sees. You sent people who moved toward me in my devastation when they could have walked away. May I now see the sacred in every wounded soul, stop the bleeding in whatever small way I can, and move toward them however you lead. Amen."

Jennifer Huff
Indiana, USA
her.Bible, Communication Coordinator