“Love always looks for the best.” 1 Corinthians 13:7 MSG.
Love has the power to rescue a ruined life and heal a broken heart.
My thoughts and comments today are about “the nature of love.”
People usually see what they expect to find. If you look for people’s faults you will find them plentiful and with that as your focus you will see little else but faults. We all have enough of those if anyone looks for them. But that’s not what real love does. Love chooses a benevolent focus.
The challenge of any friendship or marriage is how to keep in view what first prompted your friendship and love to be given. If not careful, over time you begin to notice small things that are other than you expected. A wrong focus can cause another’s graces to appear overshadowed by their flaws. That’s when you are tempted to “fix” what you see as the other’s faults, much to their displeasure and the detriment of your relationship. Our humanity seems to withdraw love until justification is undeniable.
When a person seems not to see another’s imperfections or faults, it is explained that, “Love is blind.” I would argue that real love is not blind at all, but chooses to overlook what is contrary to love. In the great passage about love, Paul wrote, “Love trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.” 1 Corinthians 13:7 MSG. You can only love others that way when you “always look for the best.” Love is not blind, but rather looks for what others do not care enough to see.
Otherwise, how would you explain God’s love? “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8. God’s only justification was His own love and the depth of your need. Years earlier, Dottie Rambo wrote a touching song of testimony that declared, “He looked beyond my faults and saw my needs.” Love has the power to rescue a ruined life and heal a broken heart. That is the nature of love. “Since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:11 NLT.
You assume others will ignore your peccadilloes. If you want to be loved, remember, “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.” (Luke 6:31 NAS), as well as an irrevocable principle, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will reap generously,” (2 Corinthians 9:6 NIV), and you determine the measure of love you will receive by choosing how you will give, “Whatever measure you use in giving will be used to measure what is given back to you.” Luke 6:38 NLT. Sow love extravagantly.
Today, I pray for you to love enough to look for the best in others as they will in you. 