Love

Do you ever have those moments where you read a passage and you feel so far away from what God defines as good?

  

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails,.. -1 Corinthians 13

There are some mighty scenes of love throughout the Bible. I Think of Moses and how he toiled with Israel his whole life, through all the stumbling and failing that occurred. I can’t imagine how burned out he must have felt at times or maybe all the time.

I think of the brave souls who stood at the foot of our tormented Saviour’s cross as it swarmed with treacherous Jews and murderous Romans. After all the horrible things that happened to Jesus, someone controlled with common sense would have been far away. But their love for Jesus was ever burning, even at that tragic scene.

But our best example of love is indeed manifested in the Godhead. How could God love us at all as we wallow in the muck and mire of our sinful state? How could He love us to the point of allowing life, ridicule, sorrow, mourning, anguish, torture, and death to happen to Jesus? How could a Creator be destroyed by the created? How could hate be the response to love? How could someone who healed the crippled, gave sight to the blind, cleansed lepers, and raised the dead, be murdered? How could He not be loved?

When Jesus was in the garden, He asked God over and over again for another way. Luke 22:44- And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. It seems absurd for me to try putting this scene into words when one’s imagination can picture Jesus dedication to love so much clearer.

Jesus went to THAT point of “uncomfortable” for us. And what is it He asks us to do? A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:34-35

A very controllable concept behind love is this, I make it happen. My love depends on no one but myself. I make the decision to love or hate based on my will through God’s help. No one else ever dictates what I will do in response to Christ’s commandment. It’s never someone else's fault that I do not love. 

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8 Being a follower of Christ means that we don’t ride the waves. It means we don’t do what is “natural.” And it means that we do things that, in human terms, don’t make sense. It means that we love even the unlovable, or forgive the unforgivable.

Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I have never lived up to expectations in love. But the cool thing is, God always does. :)