Beautiful Word Devotional #76

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

Galatians 5:14–15

A pack of dogs can either protect or destroy. If they cooperate with one another, they survive. If they turn on each other, they won’t. They’ll “bite and devour each other” to the point of death.

Paul warned us that if we spend our lives biting others (being mean, slandering, hurting people with our words or actions), we will be devoured ourselves.

The remedy for this dog-eat-dog way of living is . . . love. The remedy is to live like Jesus, who truly loved his neighbors well. It’s to look out for the interests of others and place their needs before yours sometimes. And it’s to choose the unchosen, to love the unlovely, to listen to the unheard.

If you’ve experienced dog-eat-dog living, choose differently today. Bless instead of curse. Embrace instead of shun. And if you feel you can’t do these things in your strength, ask Jesus. He will gladly help you love others.

Lord, I don’t want to be devoured by meanness. Instead, give me the power to love the people in my life, even those who have hurt me, amen.