Bring Back That Loving Feeling

3. Remember that Christian love is not an all or nothing thing, but a growing thing. “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.” 2 Thessalonians 1:3, NIV. Love is a growing thing. The fact that we realize that we fail to have affections for our brothers and sisters is an indication that we are growing. Need to press on to maturity.

4. Don't Be a Relational Fatalist. What I mean by that is the feeling that it's hopeless, and we can never change. Some may say, "I don't feel affection for anybody. My family did not feel or show affection." Well, God did not say, "Do this, if your family did it." Or: "Feel, if your family felt." Consider this: Do we think that married couples always feel tender affection for each other? Always feel tender and warm? They don't. But such affection is the ideal. That is what God calls us to. And one of the reasons he makes marriage unbreakable and seals it with an oath, "For better of for worse, till death do us part," is because he knows that we need to live our lives in the circle of rugged commitment where feelings of absolute hopelessness that affection could ever be awakened again can indeed be overcome and true, new tender affections revived. That is not only true in marriage. It is true in the church.