Here as some quick tips on loving people better.
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1. Love people in a way that liberates them of any obligation to you.
Don’t love people, do things for them, or even behave in a particular manner just to manipulate them to do something for you. Don’t be loving or sacrificial just so you can call in favours. For you to do that is very selfish, and unloving.
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. (Matthew 10:8 ESV)
2. Love people in a way that encourages them.
Love people in a way that motivates them to be better. This isn’t done by pointing out all their flaws, since that will most likely discourage them. Rather by walking a journey with them from one challenge to the next, we can encourage them in their failure and give them praise in their success. All the while being patient with them through it all.
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:11 ESV)
3. Love people in a way that impacts them.
What I mean here is that you should love people in a way that allows you to influence their growth, without controlling them. Always have their best intentions at heart, loving them in such a way that if someone where to tell them that you were planning to hurt them, they would promptly dismiss it. Love people for who they are and not who you want them to be or even who they could be.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13 ESV)
Quick Notes:
Praise is defined as expressing warm approval or admiration for something or someone (source).
I understand that due to the term, “Praise & Worship”, we can tend think of praise only in the worship and devotion sense. What I mean by praising another individual is the lifting up of someone. This can be done by acknowledgement and honouring of the person.
