“It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart.” Philippians 1:7 (NIV)

I’ve discovered that if people are not on my heart, they’re likely on my nerves. If you don’t have your spouse, kids, friends, or coworkers on your heart, they can start to get on your nerves too.

The reason so many marriages struggle is that spouses often react to each other from their minds rather than their hearts. When your wife says, “I feel depressed,” listen to her; it’s legitimate. When your husband says, “I don’t feel this is the right thing to do; we ought to do it this other way,” listen to him.

Heart love begins with understanding why someone feels the way they do. Ask questions and then listen. Hear the hurt, look at the problems from their point of view, and work to know what makes your them tick. Try to understand the temperaments of the people in your life and why they act the way they do. If you care, you’ll be aware.

Sometimes it’s a struggle to love the people closest to you, even when you’re working hard to understand them. So how does one do it? “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8 NIV). In Greek, the word affection is the word for intestines. The Greeks thought that the seat of emotion was in your stomach, your liver, your internal organs.

Paul was saying, “My love for you comes from a gut feeling.” That is not a natural kind of love. It is supernatural. That’s why Paul said it’s not from himself, but it’s the affection of Christ Jesus.

Human love wears out. It dries up and dies on the vine. The only kind of love that lasts in spite of heartache and difficulty and tough circumstances is God’s love—the affection of Jesus.

So how do you get this kind of gut love? “God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us” (Romans 5:5 GNT). God’s love is not something you work to build up. It is something that is poured into you by the Holy Spirit as you let him live in you day by day.