18 Oct #17: Learn what it means to love well…
Posted at 03:56h
in
blog
by Emily Lorin
You know the extremely popular 1 Corinthians passage, “love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, etc. etc.”?
Have you ever really read it? Read it with the intent of knowing and understanding and applying truth to your life?
Have you ever read the parts that come before and after the most popular verses?
Shall we dare take a look with fresh eyes?
“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
[1 Corinthians 13..The Message for renewed clarity; my emphasis]
Can we focus on just two statements for a moment…?
Love…puts up with anything.
Love…cares more for others than for self.
Does that sound a bit extreme to you? Can you handle that kind of love? Have you ever experienced that kind of love?
The other day I asked the boy where he thought the line between grace and stupidity fell.
His answer was one that I probably should have expected (because if you’ve ever truly experienced grace you know this to be true…apparently I needed a reminder)…he bluntly pointed out that grace is stupid. The nonexistent boundaries of grace are irrational. The things grace does are unimaginable. She (grace) is outrageous.
That’s how real love is. This big, overwhelming, reach for the stars, forever and ever, ’till death do us part (really) kind of love…it’s irrational. Unfathomable.
And seemingly impossible…but it’s not. It’s real. It’s alive all around you and within you.
We love because he first loved us. [1 John 4:19]
When I was about eleven years old and my parents relationship wasn’t doing so well, I remembering sitting with my best friend discussing how if love really was always patient and kind how so many relationships were ruined. I remember it took us a few conversations to grasp that this is referring to God’s huge and crazy love.
Real love…God’s love…is irrational. It’s “stupid.” And it’s good. It is so good.
I don’t want to tell you too much about what I think these thirteen verses mean because I think this is one that is vitally important for you to dissect, learn, and interpret on your own.
Dear twenty-something-year-old…do not let this chapter in 1 Corinthians be something you only hear from preachers and Wedding Crashers, know this chapter. Know love. Know how to love. Receive love.
Don’t let others interpret this for you because “no matter what [you] say, what [you] believe, and what [you] do, [You’re] bankrupt without love.”
So you must know what love is.
A lot of people get it wrong…I dare you to be brave enough to get it right.
#17: Learn what it means to love well…
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding…”
[Proverbs 3:5]
For more on the 31 day challenge check it out here…
KJM
Posted at 04:04h, 18 Octoberjust in the nick of time :)<br /><br />i hope you are being loved well elw!
EmilyLorin
Posted at 03:08h, 19 October