Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 (New King James Version)
It is appropriate to take joy in expressing our Love to wives, husbands, parents, children and grandchildren, boyfriends, girlfriends, relatives and very close friends. It is easy and natural to do, after all, it’s Valentine’s month.
God’s definition of Love includes loving not only those close to us, but it is evident from Scripture that for Believers to truly love the way the Apostle Paul describes and the way Jesus loved throughout his lifetime, it can sometimes be difficult for us. Loving the way God says we should must be how we approach many situations in our lives.
We should live in a way that consistently reflects God’s love and our love for those that we come into contact with, particularly non-believers. Think about it; situations arise in all aspects of our lives – work, home, family, school, friends, and church, which often require us to pause and think about how to respond to a person or a situation. In some of these instances, it may be difficult for us to act or reply the way Jesus would. We let our pride, bias, temper, or selfish nature take over and dictate our reaction that can be “knee jerk” and often times produces an unfavorable outcome, actually making an already bad situation worse.
To Love as God wants us to is not always easy.
Give it some thought; is there a situation and your response that you have been involved with recently that you now wish you could revisit as far as how you handled it from God’s perspective?
Let’s use this month of Love to open our hearts and our minds to the Scripture and to follow Jesus’s directives in our daily living and Loving.
Robert Stringfellow
