the way of love
If I don't have love, I am just an impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, selfish, irritable, resentful, celebrator of wrong, person. I am just a noise maker, I am nothing, I gain nothing. I can't bear, believe, hope or endure anything.
If I have love, I am patient, kind, happy for others, a celebrator of others, humble, polite, giving, peaceful, forgiving, a celebrator of good, Christian. I am not a noise maker, I am something, I have gained everything. I can bear, believe, hope and endure all things. I have and experience a love that will never end.
Are you like me, in that you see inconsistency in how you love and how you lack loving? Jesus has set us free by His love, to His love, to acknowledge His love, and express His love. The life, death, resurrection, and accomplishment of Jesus is our perfect experience and example of love. The holy Spirit will use God's Word to put the unlove in our lives to death as we submit in faith.
The way of love is much more than flowers, chocolate, and some ink on a card, although these are good. Love is expressed in death to self, to know that my unlove has been crucified with Christ should make me let go of me and hold up others. The way of love will not look like the worlds way of "love", it may not even look like your family's, church's, or own way of love.
How is your love?
1 Corinthians 13
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have a prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, b so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 c If I give away all I have, and d if I deliver up my body to be burned, [1] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 e Love is patient and f kind; love g does not envy or boast; it h is not arrogant 5 or rude. It i does not insist on its own way; it j is not irritable or resentful; [2] 6 it k does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but l rejoices with the truth. 7 m Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, e endures all things.
8 Love never ends.
