John 13:35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
I Cor. 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Love isn’t some nebulous, dreamy notion in Scripture. It is a response with concrete, specific actions. And, at least for me, thinking on these practical responses is really foundational to both understanding love and recognizing it in my own life. In particular, the vast majority of the Bible's descriptions of love are in the context of conflict. This is quite obvious in I Cor. 13’s classic definition of Biblical love.
It is patient. It has a long fuse and is not easily angered. Which implies something has happened in my relationship with the one I am called to love that tempts me to not be patient and to get angry. Something is wrong, uncomfortable, or aggravating. There is an irritant in the relationship.
It does not envy. There is a situation in which someone got something I want. Or got something they don’t deserve. And I am tempted to despise them for it instead of rejoice with them.
Love is not rude and does not rejoice in evil. I am tempted to cut down with sarcasm. I am tempted to be smugly satisfied when one gets what they have coming to them. They really do deserve some bad to come their way, and I am tempted to be glad when they get it.
Love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. I am tempted to hold onto every slight and bring them back up days, weeks, or months later at least to myself if not to the person themselves. When I love, I let go of my right to bitterness over a legitimate sin or slight against me. I choose to not write it down in my mental “You did me wrong” list.
But even more important than meditating on what Biblical love looks like for me is meditating on God’s love. After all, love is a FRUIT of the SPIRIT. In other words, love in my life is the overflow of my connectedness to God. So the place to start is with God’s love demonstrated in Scripture. Then I meditate on my union with Him. He’s the head, I am His Body. He’s the vine, I am the branch. The Spirit lives within me, and He produces such fruit within me.
We have just finished up a series on the fruit of the Spirit at church. The pastors regularly focused on how these fruit--love, joy, peace, goodness, and so forth--are first found perfectly in God Himself, and He is the source of them then in our lives. I LOVED especially the sermons on goodness and love. I also found the two on growth especially helpful.
So today, I meditate first on God’s love for me, which is definitely most obvious when contrasted to what I deserved instead. And from understanding His love, I am equipped to really love those in my life – not fake, poser love that is a happy smile when all is going well but fades into hopelessness or condemnation when things go south. But God’s love is by definition for when things go south – when conflict comes, when all is not well, when I am provoked, when life is not easy, when annoying long term problems continue week after week, month after month. Love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
1 comments:
Each semester I used to regularly have one class period where I would read 1 Cor 13 from the Amplified for my students. We would discuss each point. Then we could go back through that passage, and each place where the word "love" or "charity" appeared, I would have them insert their names. It was time well spent.
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