I read this devotional from Our Daily Bread and it just
confirmed so many things that have been flooding my brain and that I have been
working through for some time now. This “crazy little thing called love” is not
so crazy after all it’s just that we’re not willing to see or accept it as it
should be.
Love is not as elusive and as exclusive as we like to tell
ourselves. Real honest to goodness love is selfless. Real honest to goodness
love is when you put the other person’s happiness and well being above your own
and they will do the same for you, it works.
We have somehow gotten away from this very basic concept
with a “what have you done for me lately?” mindset. Real honest to goodness
love keeps no tabs and hold no grudges. We must learn to forgive…not for the
other person but for ourselves and our spiritual well being.
I read something the other day that made me laugh out loud
because it was a perfect example of how we view love. I’ll paraphrase the
basics:
1) Do you love me?
2) I’d take a NERF bullet for you
We run or get bitter and hold resentments when we are called
upon to make personal sacrifices in love. We keep tabs and wait for the
payback. We believe that life is not supposed to intrude on our happiness. (the
word happiness is another preach, for another time) We believe that who we
choose should respond to situations the way that we would or want them to.
We must go after God with the same zeal and intensity as we
go after who we desire. We must guide and develop the maturation of our
understanding of what it means to love.
John 3: 16-17
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
John 15: 13 – 17
13 Greater love has no one than this: to
lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14
You are my friends if you do what I command. 15
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s
business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned
from my Father I have made known to you. 16
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go
and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the
Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
The greatest gift of this life is to be able to lead in a
relationship in such a way that reflects Christ and His love for you.
Last but by no means least….
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of
angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am
nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and
give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain
nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does
not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs. 6
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are
prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled;
where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10
but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned
like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to
face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope
and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13 is the perfect definition of real honest to
goodness love ….I embrace it an I am no longer willing to take imitations,
knock off’s, close enough, good enough or reasonable facsimiles….I am promised
a full inheritance.
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