God does not make our promises automatic. And it’s a good thing too. Many times He will promote us before we feel ready to receive it, but other times, He needs to clean us up a bit. Before we can share love, we have to be able to receive love.

Love God first, then love other people. Everything hinges on those two necessities. Before you can be trusted with promise, you have to love. It can’t be a decision that you make when you feel it’s justified. Love has to flow out of you because it’s the love of God living within you.

This is the one area that will take continued development for our whole life. We have to learn to love more. To do that, we have to humble ourselves and ask God to remove anything that prevents us from loving more. It may involve opening some old wounds that we’ve chosen to ignore. There will have to be forgiveness and acceptance where it’s been hard to do. We have to be renewed in our minds. We have to want to be changed.

Our old nature is pretty stubborn and will exert itself if we let it. We have to be diligent to want what God wants for us. He wants us to love. Everything He has planned for you starts there.