LOVE MUST BE PRACTICAL AND OBSERVABLE
”Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:8 NIV.
My thoughts and comments today are that,
“Love Never fails.”
We are imperfect people, a work in progress. We all need to grow in grace where the Bible is clear, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” At one time or another, each of us fail to love. Even so, we expect other imperfect people to behave perfectly. Extend that same grace to others that you expect from God for yourself.
If your love and patience for others are not perfect, why would you demand that from others? Be prepared. The best of people will disappoint. Imperfect people behave imperfectly. Love never fails but people fail to love.
Incorrectly, we assume that love is an emotion. In truth, love is much more. Love is a decision with a corresponding commitment. When you don’t feel loving, you can still choose to love. The Bible is clear. Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you MUST love one another.” John 13:34 NIV. Not a suggestion. Never optional. Non-negotiable. Jesus is our inspiring, enabling example. Yet still we struggle to achieve obedience.
Emotions parade themselves as love every day. Much of what is assumed to be love can be diminished by our hurts and history. Emotions change with our moods, whims, and circumstances. When someone fails to love you, you feel hurt. Similarly, you diminish others when you fail to love them. When you fail to love you diminish yourself in the process.
When a person feels betrayal of trust, hearts and homes are broken. A person, hurt and disappointed, can find it hard to trust or love again. This month will have been 56 years since Gayle and I stood at an altar in a pretty, little Nazarene Church in Soquel, California. There, we pledged our love and lives to one another, “Till death do we part.”
I am embarrassed to confess that despite my best intentions then and now; I have not been always as considerate and loving as I meant to be. Ofttimes, I speak with less than loving tones, in less than loving ways, or less than selfless as I could and should. So, by a person’s own experience this claim of Scripture may seem hard to accept at face value. With what you may have been or seen or, you might struggle to confidently say or believe that, “love never fails.”
Love doesn’t fail. People fail to love. In that statement, God promises that His love can never fail. That is true of God’s love. but you have seen people’s feeble attempts to love. It also may sound like love will never let you down or disappoint you, but you may have been disappointed by someone. I think it might be more accurate that God’s Word is promising that God will never fail to love, and God’s love will never fail to be loving, as is true of His own essential nature.
How can that be said so confidently? Because love is not something that God feels, or expresses, or does. Love is who God is. “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” 1 John 4:8. God has promised, “I will never fail you or forsake you.” Joshua 1:5. If God never fails, God’s love can never fail! Your love and mine are imperfect. Our best efforts will fail unless we learn to fully embrace and express God’s love unselfishly.
Love that never fails is evidenced by these qualities: “love is patient, constructive, not possessive, not anxious to impress nor with an inflated sense of importance. Mannerly, unselfish, not touchy, never keeps account of wrongs, finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices when truth prevails. Love knows no end to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope: it can outlast anything. Love is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 JBPhillips.
To be authentic, love must be practical and observable. Those qualities of moral character and relational integrity are the true expression of God’s eternal nature. Can you learn to be more like God? “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God … dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also must love one another.” 1 John 4:7/11. You can have, and give, a love that lasts. “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.” 1 Corinthians 3:14 NLT.
Today, I pray for you to know and give the true love that does not fail.
EDL Communications 2019
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