Love (His, not mine)
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16
Said another way, by the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians:
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love,I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries andmaking everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to amountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake tobe burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere.
So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.Love cares more for others than for self.Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.Love doesn't strut,Doesn't have a swelled head,Doesn't force itself on others,Isn't always "me first,"Doesn't fly off the handle,Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,Doesn't revel when others grovel,Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,Always looks for the best,Never looks back,But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying intongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only aportion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete.But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooedlike any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peeringthrough a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears andthe sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearlyas God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things todo to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hopeunswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. (from 'The Message')
``
It becomes discouraging sometimes, challenging always: to live out the love of God as a verb, rather than merely talking about it as a noun.
Against the standards set by Jesus in his willingness to die, even for those who hated him, we fall very short. The doing of love- the active, difficult, frustrating doing of love- demands time, money, decisions, and commitment that very few people are willing to give. It is hard. There is no emotionally elevating soundtrack in the background when we are doing the real love work of God’s kingdom. The kind of happy endings or resolutions that we expect from watching television shows that touch our hearts, are rare.
It is easy to sing about love, write about it, and even to talk about it. We can keep the doing of love at arm’s length by talking about it. (doing the verb vs. talking about the noun) . We can be inspirational and emotional about God’s love with our words, our poetry, our jewelry, even our church architecture, and completely miss the mark in living out that love. We can accumulate awards and applause for the good sounds we make while, at the same, we sound like nothing more to God than the squeaking of a rusty gate, according to Paul.
Christianity has become equated, for many, in this early part of the 21st Century in America, with a particular strain of politics. It’s an easy connection to make, unfortunately. The doing of God’s love is difficult and hard to see, so many move away from it so neither their hands nor their political identities become soiled. They have learned to-somehow- equate the love of God with a particular politician, or to a proposed amendment in the legislature, or to protests over school prayer, evolution, gay marriage, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. I really believe that one day the greatest heresy of our time will not be identified as one of those things so many spend so much time protesting. The greatest heresy of our time will be seen as not loving the way God loves.
Republican/Democratic posturing is meaningless if there is a single family living in poverty in America whose home is within the shadow of a Christian church. Protesting and fussing about Gay Marriage, School Prayer, SpongeBob Squarepant’s sexuality, or the words to the Pledge of Allegiance are- I really do believe this- exactly what the enemies of God want Christians to be busy about. Satan- I believe- loves to see a crowd of people gathered and congratulating themselves over political achievements, while people at the edges of society remain skeptical and wondering over Christian’s responses to their suffering. Satan loves it when people talk about Love, without doing anything about it.
Uh-oh, I’m ranting. Stick with Paul’s words to the Corinthians. Those are the words we all need to allow to be burned into our souls. Living those words, living that kind of Love, is really the only option we have in truly being able to adequately respond to God’s love for us.
Said another way, by the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians:
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love,I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries andmaking everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to amountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake tobe burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere.
So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.Love cares more for others than for self.Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.Love doesn't strut,Doesn't have a swelled head,Doesn't force itself on others,Isn't always "me first,"Doesn't fly off the handle,Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,Doesn't revel when others grovel,Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,Always looks for the best,Never looks back,But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying intongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only aportion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete.But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooedlike any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peeringthrough a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears andthe sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearlyas God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things todo to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hopeunswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. (from 'The Message')
``
It becomes discouraging sometimes, challenging always: to live out the love of God as a verb, rather than merely talking about it as a noun.
Against the standards set by Jesus in his willingness to die, even for those who hated him, we fall very short. The doing of love- the active, difficult, frustrating doing of love- demands time, money, decisions, and commitment that very few people are willing to give. It is hard. There is no emotionally elevating soundtrack in the background when we are doing the real love work of God’s kingdom. The kind of happy endings or resolutions that we expect from watching television shows that touch our hearts, are rare.
It is easy to sing about love, write about it, and even to talk about it. We can keep the doing of love at arm’s length by talking about it. (doing the verb vs. talking about the noun) . We can be inspirational and emotional about God’s love with our words, our poetry, our jewelry, even our church architecture, and completely miss the mark in living out that love. We can accumulate awards and applause for the good sounds we make while, at the same, we sound like nothing more to God than the squeaking of a rusty gate, according to Paul.
Christianity has become equated, for many, in this early part of the 21st Century in America, with a particular strain of politics. It’s an easy connection to make, unfortunately. The doing of God’s love is difficult and hard to see, so many move away from it so neither their hands nor their political identities become soiled. They have learned to-somehow- equate the love of God with a particular politician, or to a proposed amendment in the legislature, or to protests over school prayer, evolution, gay marriage, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. I really believe that one day the greatest heresy of our time will not be identified as one of those things so many spend so much time protesting. The greatest heresy of our time will be seen as not loving the way God loves.
Republican/Democratic posturing is meaningless if there is a single family living in poverty in America whose home is within the shadow of a Christian church. Protesting and fussing about Gay Marriage, School Prayer, SpongeBob Squarepant’s sexuality, or the words to the Pledge of Allegiance are- I really do believe this- exactly what the enemies of God want Christians to be busy about. Satan- I believe- loves to see a crowd of people gathered and congratulating themselves over political achievements, while people at the edges of society remain skeptical and wondering over Christian’s responses to their suffering. Satan loves it when people talk about Love, without doing anything about it.
Uh-oh, I’m ranting. Stick with Paul’s words to the Corinthians. Those are the words we all need to allow to be burned into our souls. Living those words, living that kind of Love, is really the only option we have in truly being able to adequately respond to God’s love for us.
posted by D.Barry Weber at 12:31 PM
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