“Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs…It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Co 13:4-7.
This is a passage all too familiar to have fresh impact every time it is read. We enjoy hearing it at weddings, we sit comfortably in church and receive the message, but do we live it out? Do these beautiful words reside on paper or do we truly pursue real love…superior love…love only obtained through a God-centered love? Sometimes when a passage with this much depth can be read with little emotion behind it, I will put its meaning in my own words. I will consider what it looks like in real time…real life…real people. It brings the lifeless ink into breathing actions.
This morning I decided to think about love in my own way with the circumstances I might face today. I am loving well when I am being patient and kind with the people whom I surround myself today. I will win at love today when I look at what you have that I don’t and not hold it against you. Loving today will mean I will avoid taking credit for something or bragging. When I love I will not see you as inferior but as my equal sibling in Christ. Loving well is recognizing that you are vulnerable to weakness and sin just as I am, not holding things against you. I will love today if I pray for the Holy Spirit to readjust and resettle my emotions so you can receive my best. I will love those well if I approach them with an attitude like Jesus…not what they can do for me but what I can do for them. I will love if I frame love’s benefit being for the other person. I will love today by trusting that words said to me are sincere instead of doubting motives. I will love today by having hope that all relationships can be reconciled. Love will help me bear and endure all circumstances I may encounter.
This is superior love that God calls us to pursue. Everything I listed can only be done through prayer and petition. God is all of these things, and will graciously give us the abilities to live out loud the love He has. Our love will be more than ink on paper…it will be demonstrated through our actions and attitudes.
“You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” 2 Co 3:3
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