Loving Others in Practical Things

One of the most essential elements of loving others is caring about what they care about. We cannot really love someone if we do not care about the things which are important to them.

Conversely it is also avoiding things which upset them. If we have a friend where something of little or no importance upsets them we cannot love them if we bring it up.

You see this is what it means to love others as we love ourselves. We care about the things we care about very deeply. Love to others entails caring about what those people care about.

We cannot always get deeply excited about what others enjoy. If a friend loves to fish and I do not then I may not be able to connect on that topic well. But it is the spirit of love to care about what others care about within reason.

At the very least we should not act as if the interests of others are inferior or pointless. You see there are many things which interest others that do not interest us simply because we are different.

Some people like this piece of music and some people do not. Some people prefer certain types of food and some do not. In the realm of preference love should at a minimum accept that certain interests of others that we see no point in are simply a difference in preference.

Often we see people make absolute statements about preference and actually think they are saying something absolutely true. This is against the spirit of love. It is also somewhat irrational to think our preferences toward non ethical issues in some way are absolute or more valid than others' preferences to the same non ethical things.

Glorifying God and Enjoying God Are One and the Same Thing

Question: What is man's chief end?
Answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
(Westminster Catechism question and answer #1)

The great thing about this question and answer than in two sentences we have a good start to understanding our relationship got God.  The first thing that we notice is that man has only one chief end but two things listed under that chief end.  The implication of this is that glorifying God and enjoying God are one and the same thing. If you attempt to glorify God without enjoying him you have not glorified him.  Men might get away with showing honor to an earthly king and giving him glory while despising him, but you cannot with a heavenly king.  Our father in heaven sees the heart. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind.  If you wish to glorify God you must take pleasure in him.  You cannot love something without taking pleasure in it.  Praise flows from our lips about things we cherish most.  So if me enjoy God we will glorify him with our mouths and lives.  "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." (Matthew 12:34)  True love is not complete without praise.  The wonder is that God, the most important thing in the universe, is the center of our praise and the praise God calls us to is what will fill our hearts with unspeakable joy.  The gloriousness of this is that the most beautiful and only inexhaustible being in the universe's plan is that we be eternally happy in praising and enjoying His Excellencies.