Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
It does not rejoice about injustice
but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith,
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NLT
Love encompasses all the good there is in the world. Love taps into the spirit within us. God loves us and He is love. And because He loves us so much He kindly gave us what we needed in order to love properly. Love says ‘yes!’ even when faced with impossibility.
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8
And Romans 12:9-10 says,
Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them.
Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.
Love each other with genuine affection,
and take delight in honoring each other.
I believe (and will always believe) that love is a choice and an action. We don’t just run around just loving because we don’t have a choice. For some, loving others is embedded in their very fabric—like their heart beating—it is who we are. But for others, it is like sleeping…we have to think about it and sometimes we fight it. We, as human beings, have the luxury to pick who we will and will not love. Our love is not always unconditional. In a world of greed and putting ‘Number 1′ first, our love sometimes is up for sale to the highest bidder. We withhold from others what we ourselves know we desire.
Love is meant to be unconditional. But, like many other things the human race has gotten it’s hands on, it can be tainted. And we need to remember this. We aren’t going to love perfectly. In a perfect world we would, but we don’t live in a perfect world. I’m not saying we need to excuse or ignore the fact that we don’t love perfectly, but we need to be kinder to one another. Some of us have had poor examples of what love actually looks like. What we know in our minds sometimes does not translate in the real world, because we just don’t know what it’s supposed to be like.
We are imperfect. Our love will be imperfect. Together, we can strive for Godly love. Together we can show one another (and unbelievers) what love truly looks like. We can be examples of the Lord’s love—He loves us, so we can love others. Together, we can get it right.
