Mecklenburg Community Church

Love matters. What we do matters. What we say matters. How we say it matters. All of those can be accomplished well, with love.

Jesus tells us exactly what we should do once we become a follower of Him. He said:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is followed by the second greatest commandment: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

Simply put… we are to love God with all that we are, first and foremost. Second, we are to love others selflessly!

Check out this blog with tips and tricks on how to lead your children to love God.

Loving others takes practice. Our natural tendency is to prioritize our well-being over others. We can lead our children to “love others as ourselves” by reminding them of a few things.

Love is a choice, not a feeling.

Feelings fluctuate. We can get angry and want to lash out or say mean things. During these times, it can feel like we don’t love the person that we are angry with when in reality, we do! We are just angry with them.

We can help children realize that it’s okay to feel anger, but that how we react to our anger is something we can control. We can pause and choose to love in spite of how we feel. Taking 10 seconds to pause, pray and then respond is a good practice for any of us when we get angry.

We can also choose to love someone by putting their needs before our own. When your 4 year old shares his toy with his younger brother even when he doesn’t want to, we can praise him for “choosing to love” at that moment.

If your child struggles to show love to someone, perhaps remind him that everyone is wonderfully made by God. Have your child insert the name of the difficult person and say this back to you - “_____ is wonderfully made by God.”

Love is a verb.

Common passages in the Bible about love, like 1 Corinthians 13, show that love is a verb, meaning that there is an action attached to it. Reminding our kids that love without action is not love at all is an important part of helping kids learn about love.

Jesus was a master at noticing the needs of others. Asking questions like “what did you do today to show love to your sister?” or “Granddad is sick, what can we do to love him today?” will help a child see that “doing” is an important part of loving.

Try playing a game with your kids in the car on the way to the store or a sports practice and challenge them to find a way to show love to someone at your destination! On the drive home, praise and celebrate any ways that you saw them put love into action.

You can also check out the MecKidz Mission of the Month for ideas of how you can meet the needs of others in our community!

Model love.

One of the most important ways to lead our kids to love others is by modeling. The more we show love to our children, our spouse, friends and family, the more they will mimic it.

Let’s begin the lifelong journey to love God and love others more deeply today than we did yesterday.