williams/Williams
Love is hard!
Love is hard! Especially loving like Jesus. There. That’s all that should be said and you reading this, if you think you’ve loved, should be nodding your collective heads. But I have about seven-hundred words to fill so let me ramble a little longer. Maybe bring the heart of Jesus into it.
We-all of us, use that word Love a lot. We love pizza, You love that sweater, we love our dogs, we love our kids, or love that person we are dating. We love them so much we tell them—’hey I love you!’ “Well, I love you too,’ is always the response. All of us are using the same word, in the same manner with pizza. We compare a human relationship the same as, well, a thin crust.
‘Come on Mark, we do not. I really love her.’
Paul lists what Love is.
I am sure you do. But for the sake of this article, lets discuss what we are really doing and saying. In 1 Corinthians 13,https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20corinthians%2013&version=ESV Paul lists what Love is. He defines it and puts in some pretty easy terms to understand. It starts in verse 4. Love is patient, kind, doesn’t envy nor boast, and isn’t proud. It doesn’t dishonor others or is not self-seeking. It doesn’t get angry-ever, doesn’t keep a list of wrongs, and does not delight in evil and rejoices in truth. Always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails-ever.
Here. Do that and you love. But, before you go with your marching orders, know this—it is going to hurt like hell. It will make you feel pained, weak, completely fatigued. For men who are fathers, it will cost you plenty—maybe even your life.
Good times, eh?
It cost the Son of God….
It cost the Son of God to spread his arms out as wide as he could reach to die so we could live. The unblemished lambs and goats weren’t getting it done. He knew they wouldn’t. It would never be enough, that’s why He did it. To show the Law, if you want to be holy you had to follow the law and Dad knew that would break us. It cost Jesus everything. And he is the only one who didn’t or shouldn’t have to pay.
I imagine a conversation with his own Dad before He came to earth. He would ask Him before he was born a man on this planet, before time began, if not me, then who, Dad?
If not me, then who?
If I am to love, these things I listed I need to do/not do, depending on what they are. To tell a woman (in my case) that I love her, I am saying these things I will do, not to show you I love you, but because that is what Love is. Anything else is lint from the dryer. It has nothing to do with sex. It has nothing to do with hand holding, or a big red bow on top of a new car.
We, as humans, compare those things with Love. That is a weak and contaminating element to our idea of love. Satan put that there. He wants us to stay away from this list. When you look at it, it’s a simple list. It really is. I can handle not boasting—for a while. But let me throw this idea out to you.
When I say ‘I love you’ I am really saying ‘Mark, this is what you need to mean if you’re going to say that.’ I am reminding myself, of my task. Oh, and I will fail many many many times. Did I say many? No one—no one can do it, ever without the Holy Spirit in us driving the ship.
‘Wait, then why did Paul make the list if we can’t do it?’ Good question. We can do nothing without God living in us in the form of the Holy Spirit. It’s like making a replica of the Mona Lisa with crayons. Sure, I can draw a circle and a smile, but it is a weak example of Mona.
We are weak examples….
WE are weak examples of people who can love. Actually, and challenge me if I am wrong, but my two dogs love better than I do. They are pure at it. Maybe that’s why I love them so much. They love me unconditionally, guarding me in the bathroom for Jesus sake! The two of them sit at the door and wait until I am done and then they get up and move to wherever I am going.
Love the way Paul states it, will kill me. If I did this right, I will die because I loved well. It will cause me to give up, give in, surrender, depend on a god I cannot see, except in Him living in me. (John 15:13 greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (brothers, sisters, etc)https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2015%3A13&version=ESV . If I love well, it will work me physically. It is easy to ‘love’ like we’ve been doing. Almost anything is. It seems hard sometimes, but if you love the way God wants us to, sacrificially like Jesus, it will take you to a whole new level.
And Heaven will sing.
…here is what is happening.
But here is what is happening. An ‘unseen hand’ is moving us through life. Moved by the Holy Spirit. We move as we are guided, almost without any idea it is happening. The more we comply with the gentleness of that hand, the closer we lean into that hand. Age wears our edges and experiences expose us to that list of what Love is, the one we have run from, hid from, mocked, justified alternatives, but now look on almost embarrassingly so. We realize we have been the ones to have run from it, made fun of it, mocked. We are too embarrassed to admit it.
But the guy on the cross knew. So did His Dad. That’s why he went to the cross. For me. For you. If not me, then who, Dad?
So, I went over 700 words. Don’t judge me. But you have a chance to lean into God. He looks at you and as you come to Him, embarrassed as to what you did, He simply smiles and says what are you talking about? I don’t see any debt you owe. It appears to, once and for all, to have been paid. Now, go try it again-and again-and again.
So, know you are LOVED. It was modeled for you. Go try to copy it. Many times, you will nail it-often.
1 corinthians 13 ESV – The Way of Love – If I speak in the – Bible Gateway
John 15:13 ESV – Greater love has no one than this, that – Bible Gateway
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