Shoving my beliefs down your throat is something that you will never catch me doing. For the sake of this article, however, I will briefly share my beliefs with you. I believe in God. I believe that Jesus died and rose for my sins, as well as yours. Ultimately, however, I believe that God is love and I think that is something that many modern day Jesus followers have forgotten.

The thing is, I consider myself a fairly non-judgmental person. I have had friends from all different backgrounds, different religions, different races, different sexual orientations, different beliefs, different ages, and different cultures. I take pride in the fact that I have had the opportunity to be involved with so many different types of people, but I know that there are those who would disagree with my blind tolerance.

Some people throw around certain Bible verses intending to attack and exclude large groups of people with them. In my opinion stated above, however, if you only look at God as love then you start to see everyone around you a little bit differently, no matter what any of your other personal beliefs may be. You start to see people for their actions instead of the labels you yourself, or the world, has placed upon them. Whether you are a devout Christian, an atheist, a 52-year-old mother of three, or a teenager questioning his sexuality, I believe that there are verses from the Bible we can all reflect upon and learn from. At this point, no living person can tell us exactly which interpretations of the Bible are correct or incorrect. Our beliefs are our beliefs, and we have a right to them. We do not have a right, however, to use the Bible solely to attack and exclude people.

With that in mind, I decided to seek out some less popular Bible verses that we all could benefit in taking a second - or even a first - glance at. I think believers and non-believers alike can find something worthwhile in the following quotes:

1 John 4:7 (NIV): "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."

Now, if you are a non-believer, you might be thinking, But wait...what does this have to do with me? Well, I think the most telling part of this verse is "Let us love one another." There are not very many people who have never experienced love in any way, shape, or form, and in my opinion, this verse really equalizes everyone who has ever taken part in any act of love.

Colossians 3:13 (NIV): "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

This verse is all about tolerance and forgiveness. So often people see God as this wicked, selfish being because of how some Christians portray Him, and I find that to be very sad when a verse like this so obviously preaches tolerance and forgiveness.

1 Peter 4:8 (NIV): "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins."

This is just another example of a verse that tells us to love each other without any conditions or limitations, even claiming that love is more powerful than any wrong-doing.

Proverbs 11:27 (NIV): "Whoever seeks good finds favor, but evil comes to one who searches for it."

The way I see it is that if you constantly choose to look for the bad in someone, that usually reflects more on you than it does them. If you look for the bad in a situation, then you will always find something bad in the situation even if there was really nothing disdainful there to begin with.

Romans 13:8 (NIV): "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law."

*GASP!* Another verse telling us that simply LOVING ONE ANOTHER is enough!

And finally, one of my favorite verses in the Bible...

Romans 12:21 (NIV) "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

This verse speaks for itself.

What I really want people to think about is how much better the world could be if we loved a little more often, and judged a little less. Keep that in mind, and know that whatever your beliefs are...someone out there loves you, and that someone is me. Imagine the revolution that we could start if only we refused to let hate burden us!