Loving like God loves

Often read at weddings and often called the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13 is both joyful and sobering. Who can love like this without the Holy Spirit of God filling their heart with it?

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–8)

The ’everlasting’ part touches me today. This says love will outlive all declarations about God, all spiritual gifts, all understanding and knowledge. I cannot imagine the world without those three — yet even when they are obsolete, love remains.

A few verses later, a greater statement is made . . .

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Think of eternity in these terms. Nothing else will be needed but love. Why is that? It strikes me that faith is about trusting Christ, but also about me. Hope is about the assurance of God for my future, but also about me.

Love is different; it is not about me. Yes, God loves me, but because the Holy Spirit pours it in me so it can be poured out, His love gives me concern for others, just as His heart is about others.

Faith and hope will be realized — what I believe and hope for will become a reality. However, the endless, everlasting love of God is always real and will never pass away or become completely fulfilled. His love is without boundaries, without beginning or end, without total fulfilment in that it is never done. It will never waver like faith does, never be uncertain like hope is, but always shining and poured out from a God whose love cannot fade or be used up.

Tozer says that my love for God should include reverence without levity or a careless familiarity. While I agree, I know that God’s love for me often chuckles just as His humor shows in creation with the crafting of some of the silliest of animals and their habits.

However, there is a reason I should never consider God lightly. Loving Him produces great conviction of my own unworthiness. God has no reason to love me except love is who He is. Faith is about me trusting Him. Hope is about me putting my expectations in His promises. But love begins with God.

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins . . . We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:10, 19)

Unless I realize that He loves me, unless I know Him, I cannot love Him or anyone else with that endless and abiding love. Instead, my ‘love’ will be based on the performance of others, not like God’s love that is based on who He is apart from any deservedness in us.

^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, to love as You love I need the Holy Spirit and the willingness to admit that I cannot do it without You. I also need to remember and fully embrace the fact that You love me, regardless of who I am and what I do. This is who You are. I also need You to keep me aware that Satan’s biggest lie remains ‘God does not love you’ and not let this enemy bring doubt or forgetfulness into my mind. Thank You for Your grace and for holding me in Your care.

Practicing Love

Today’s devotional reading asks a rhetorical question: Isn’t life full of opportunities for learning love?
 

As someone who does not work outside the home and whose children have grown and have their own families, how can I practice love? What opportunities does God give me? I want to be in that schoolroom learning those lessons of love, but how can I develop this in the quiet of where I live?

The love of God is not about emotions. Rather, it is an expression of a Christlike nature that could be emotional, but more often involves action. As today’s reading says, this love is built up by daily practice and aided by the biblical assurance that love “never fails.”

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

What can I do to practice this incredible gift from God so my life bears the fruit of the Holy Spirit and glorifies Him? Scripture defines love by what it is and what it is not.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things… So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:4–7, 13)

These verses give me some ideas. While many of these are more about attitude than actions, those attitudes will come out as opportunities arise. With that in mind, here are some ways to practice love:

Patient – means long suffering, so showing patience without blowing up — with everything from untangling a ball of yarn to that repair man who keeps making mistakes, to disappointment and failures, including my own.

Kind – to the clerks in the grocery store, the sales people who call, and to my family who can bug me at times.

No envy – of others who have “bigger, better, more” so as to build my life around keeping up to the status quo, or of others whom God is blessing when I do not feel blessed.

No boasting – about what I have that others do not, or about God’s blessing on my life without humility and remembering I deserve none of it.

No arrogance – thinking myself better than others, putting down others, or dwelling their faults.

Not rude – not even to telemarketers and pushy sales people, or to family members whose feelings can be taken for granted.

Puts others first – letting traffic into my lane, giving my husband the best piece of pie, listening instead of talking, praying when issues come up instead of when it is convenient to pray.

Not irritable – when the neighbor’s dogs bark and bark, or when a talkative clerk takes forever with the person in line ahead of me.

Not resentful – when I am in the middle of something and am interrupted, or when someone cuts me off in traffic.

 

Rejoices not with evil but with the truth – not fascinated by daily disasters, instead praying for those in need.

Bears all things – listening to a lonely person on those days when my to-do list is exceptionally long.

Believes all things – remembering that God is my supply so I can sacrificially give without anxiety that I myself will lose out, and so I can pray with assurance that He is listening.

Hopes all things – eagerly expecting God to answer my prayers and reward love in many ways.

Endures all things – means to stay under, abide in situations that tempt or test me.

Some day God will judge me for what I have done and neglected to do, but I doubt that He will consider my theology or how often I attended church or how much money I gave. Instead, He will focus on how I have loved Him and loved others. 

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:12–17)

Loss can be gain

Aging and loss seem to go together. Our aging friends die. Our faculties waver at best and some vanish. We lose our keys, glasses, and other possessions. Memory falters and we even lose interest in activities that we once enjoyed. This morning’s devotional takes a look at the opposites — three things that cannot be lost.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Some think faith is the most important on this list. Hebrews 11:6 says that “without faith it is impossible to please God” yet love is greater.

Hope sits in the middle yet I wonder why it is on the list, for in eternity with Christ, all hope will be fulfilled. Yet  hope means expectation and with that definition, heaven will be a place of continual delight, including expectations and their fulfillment.

The third item is love. This verse says it will abide or remain and that it is the greatest item on the list. This love is “agape” and means benevolent and sacrificial actions for the good of others.

1 Corinthians 13 gives some examples. This kind of love is not mere talk, but action. It comes from the heart of Jesus and is motivated by our faith in Him. Love is also energized by a hope for positive things, a looking forward to the future and forgetting about the past. Love is also caring about others to the point of being willing to die for them.

Earlier, the chapter says that faith can move mountains, but without love, moving mountains is nothing. It also makes clear that if love is not in everything I do, my life is nothing.

Before reading this, I’ve thought about what would be left when I die. I can make sure my stuff goes to people who need it, but will I leave behind any of the qualities describing love — patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, a good temper, and a sincerity that keeps no record of wrongs?

The devotional writer points out that each description about love is in relation to people and life. That is, love applies to what is known today rather that what will happen in the unknowns of eternity. While the Bible says love will abide or last forever, God did not intend that it be kept in my pocket until that day when I arrive there. Just as eternal life is a present possession for those who know and have Christ in our lives, so is love intended to be lived out here and now, not just a possession for a far off future.

The devotional says, “Lavish (love) on the poor, where it is very easy; especially on the rich, who often need it most; most of all on our equals, for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure.”

 

These are convicting thoughts. I rate myself as stingy with love. I can be impatient and thoughtless, selfish and carry grudges. Love does not do these things. Losing stuff and my faculties is nothing compared to the need to lose these sinful attitudes — and then let the Holy Spirit fill the empty spaces with the love of God.