real love

Real Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“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” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5).

Love. It gets talked about quite a lot these days. We talk about how we love our spouses and children. We also say how much we love oreos or vanilla ice cream. We use the same word for the people whom we pledged to spend the rest of our lives with as we use for food groups.

The Greek language has four words for love. I won’t get all technical on you, but basically those words in English are companionship (between people or even between a person and his or her dog), friendship, erotic/sexual/romantic love and unconditional love. The last kind is a kind that only originates from God and while we may say we love others with this kind of love, it’s really God loving those people through us.

Love is more than a feeling. It’s definitely more than the sappy lyrics to any of the multitude of syrupy love songs you’ll hear on the radio. Real love is an action, a choice, a verb. It means you always act toward the best interests of the beloved, whether you feel like it or not.

If love is a feeling, then it won’t last, because no feeling lasts forever. But if love is a choice, then you can always keep choosing to love and keep choosing to act lovingly even when you don’t feel love.

 

 

Real Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’d like to preface this by confessing my lack of expertise in this area, but here goes.

I think true love doesn’t always look like it does in the movies.

It’s not as dramatic and there’s usually no orchestra playing a grand theme in the background when it happens.

There may or may not be butterflies and it may or may not happen in an instant, though I’m inclined to believe that the best of true loves happen gradually over time as friends realize that they are in love with each other.

Sometimes, I think people miss true love because they expect it to be like it is in those rom-com movies and in those Nicholas Sparks books and in all those love songs.

I’m not saying that movie-love never ever happens outside of the movies, but more that it isn’t the norm.

Love isn’t a feeling as much as it is an act of the will. A choice. A commitment to seek the welfare of the beloved regardless of whether you feel like it or not. And the feelings will come and go. You will probably fall in and out of love many times but you can always choose to love consistently through it all. Sometimes you have to act loving and do loving things before the loving feeling comes.

As I understand it, love isn’t easy. Love takes work. It takes dying to your own needs sometimes and putting the other’s needs above yours. It takes dying to your ways of doing things and your perceptions about how those things ought to be done.

I think it’s okay to watch those Hallmark movies or listen to those love songs as long as you don’t confuse them for reality. Real love isn’t as flowery or poetic but in the end, it’s something far more grand.

Never forget that real love led a Man to a Cross to be tortured and bleed and die for you and me. Real love said that no price was too high to win your heart. To win my heart.

That, my friends, is real love.

Just Some Thoughts From Another Good Night at Kairos

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In spite of the cold and rain, it was a good night. At Kairos, Mike Glenn wrapped up the series called “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” with some final thoughts on what true love is. And yes, you know that Tina Turner song is now stuck in your head.

I remember reading somewhere that love isn’t sentiment as much as it is service. It isn’t feelings as much as it is action. As the old dc talk song says, “Love is a verb.”

Most of the time, we think of love as a contract. I’ll love you if you love me back, but don’t expect me to keep loving you if you quit. In other words, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

But God’s love isn’t a contract. It’s a covenant where he essentially says to his people, “I will always be your God, your Savior, your Lord, your Provider, and your Defender.”

His love isn’t contingent on ours. I’d be in serious trouble if that were the case. His love is forever.

In Matthew, Jesus defines real love. It’s one thing to love those who love you back and be friends with those who are easy to get along with that. Anybody can do that, with or without God’s help. But it’s entirely another thing to love your enemies and do good for those who despise you. It takes supernatural grace to do that.

In other words, people expect you to give as good as you get. They expect you to fight fire with fire, anger with anger, grudges with grudges, and hate with hate. But Jesus is calling us to fight anger with kindness, grudges with forgiveness, and hate with love. That’s the only way to end the seemingly endless cycle.

Love doesn’t stay put. It goes to where the hurting people are, to where the need is greatest, to the dangerous places that most people won’t go. It looks for and draws out the best in the other person, even when that other person can’t see it.

We need more love like that. I need more love like that. An unbelieving and lost and hurting world needs to see love like that.

A Smorgasbord of Thoughts

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I went to Golden Corral once. It was overwhelming. For the uninformed, Golden Corral is a buffet-style restaurant with every imaginable kind of food you could possibly want. You can have sample a little bit of a lot of different kinds of foods (and even fill your plate with nothing but greasy fried foods if that’s your heart’s desire). It’s up to you.

That’s how my thoughts are tonight. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, and they don’t necessarily go together. And you might or might not need some Tums tablets after reading them. But here they are.

1 John 4:7 says that God is love. Not the mushy, touchy-feely kind of love that gets pushed around in books and movies. Not the needy, grabby kind that is just lust in disguise. Not warm sentiments and Hallmark lyrics.

God is the love that does everything possible to bring out the best in the beloved. That’s you. That’s me. God is the ultimate pursuer of hearts who longs for his people to know him more than anything.

I keep pinching myself lately and wondering how I got so blessed. I am around some amazing people all day long, from family to friends who inspire me on a daily basis to strive after Jesus. I don’t think I’d be nearly as mature in the faith without them. In fact, I probably would have quit on the faith a long time ago without them.

It’s amazing that when you set your mind to look for the blessings in your life, you find them everywhere. When you stop concentrating on what you don’t have and focus on what you do have, you realize you have a lot. And those things you don’t have don’t seem as important anymore.

If you only remember one thing out of all this, remember that God loves you and is for you and wants you and won’t ever give up on you. Okay, that’s like four things, but they’re all in one sentence, so that counts as one thought, right? It’s never too late and you’re never too far gone for God to find and rescue and redeem.

I told you my thoughts were all over the map. They should probably make pills for this, but hey, at least I make life interesting.