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Love has several expressions: brotherly love (friendship), sexual love, familial love, and the purest, most perfect love agape. Agape love wants what is best for the person being loved. It is steadfast, sacrificial, and without guile.
God's love is: patient, kind, not jealous. It doesn't brag and is not arrogant. His love doesn't act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own, is not provoked, and does not take into account a wrong suffered. God's love rejoices with the truth. Godly love is healing and transforming.
God's love offers acceptance; total acceptance. It disarms self-protectors, outlasts cynics, strengthens the weary, and fosters transformation. We learn the best when we feel the safest (Byron Kehler). When we KNOW we're loved, we can examine ourselves without fear of condemnation and retaliation. Self-examination leads to correct understanding and proper allocation of responsibility.
Godly love bears up underneath great stress and strains (bears all things). It believes the best of others, the best of God, and the best of ourselves believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Godly love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a).
Love never fails! Love never fails! Love never fails! Our anger will fail because the anger of a man will not achieve the righteousness of God (James 1). Our manipulation will fail. Our adroit persuasion will fail. Only love will never fail.
What does this look like? It boils down to loving someone well enough and long enough, through the power of the Holy Spirit, thereby creating a divine opportunity for transformation. Interestingly, both the giver and the receiver of this kind of love are changed for the better.
Ask the Father to enable you to love others with the love of Christ. Blessings to you all. m
Very good comments. I like M. Scott Peck's definition of love, which I think incorporates the biblicat view of love: nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.
ReplyDeleteOkay, Murphy, I'm in! Thanks for a powerful post - one that is VERY timely for me. Especially the part about God's love providing safety. That was the most important Word I heard today.
ReplyDeleteThanks for blessing me with this post. God's love is totally amazing! Without God’s Word we would have despaired of ever knowing that we are loved, we would be content with this world’s pathetic love substitutes and empty imitations; and we would not know how to give God-love to others. “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.” We can’t love God unless we love our brother and our sister.
ReplyDeleteA while back I was thinking through this subject as well. Rather than post such a long comment, I'll include a link to one of my blog posts on The Color of Love
http://thinkingtoodeeply.blogspot.com/2009/02/color-of-love.html
I'm enjoying this sharing of thoughts!
Happy Mothers Day Murphy! :)
ReplyDeleteHi, Murphy! Great Post...loved what you said about the transformative power of love--it changes both giver and receiver. Yes, so true. Something about being a conduit of love that hones our character and forms us into loving people. Bless you for this. Beth B
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