Thursday, February 14, 2013

Love


Love does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  Corinthians 13:5b-136a

Love does not take into account a wrong suffered -  The word logizesthai is an accountant’s word.  Entering an item in a ledger so it will be remembered.  In some strange way, getting our feelings hurt ministers to our ego.  Resentment is hiding the little things in your mind that will enable you to continue to go to them like a playroom of bitterness and "hurt" someone with thought of anger and resentment.  How sad.  LOVE DOESN'T KEEP SCORE!  Christian love will learn the great lesson of forgetting.  Carrying the wrongs of the past will clutter your enjoyment of the present.

Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness  Love does not gossip.   It finds no value in passing on any information that would destroy another.  Simply stated, love doesn't have to put anyone else down to build itself up.  Over and over we have heard the saying, "Love is blind." That is not true. Love has eyes that can see and love is aware. But love also has eyelids, and sometimes love chooses to close its eyes and not see. When a turkey is wounded and gets a spot of blood on its feathers, the other turkeys will peck at that spot until they literally peck the wounded turkey to death. Alas-people can be like that. The reason is that it ministers to our own' conceits. We have not done that particular wrong and that makes us feel self-righteous.

Love rejoices with the truth -  Love is always eager to believe the best.  Jesus could always see the good qualities in others. He could see a queen in a harlot, a preacher in a fisherman with no manners, and what about you and me?  Jesus is not the one who condemns but commends us to a higher walk.  HE NEVER CONDEMNED THE SINNERS ONLY THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS.

Love bears all things - protects. - to cover, hold off:  The picture is that love will enable us to stand...regardless.  Love bore the cross, love despised the shame, and love opened the tomb.

Love believes all things - is trusting  You cannot stop love from trusting again and again for it is its nature to trust.  Love will let the one who failed and been proven a liar have another opportunity to prove his dedication.  The trust of love is the thrust of redemption for by faith we hold God and He holds us.

Love hopes all things  - Love has a creative power in the lives of others.   Hope can restore a man's dedication to a task or commitment to a goal.  Others love for us many times is our only hope.   As we see ourselves as we are in their eyes, then hope can be rekindled.

Love endures all things  - always perseveres, - to bear, endure triumphantly.  Hupomenein - this is not the kind of spirit that can sit down and passively endure things, but that spirit that can, in bearing things, actually conquer them.  One thing to be said is that life's possibilities come in pairs: goodness and evil, short and tall, strong and weak, hot and cold -and also pain and pleasure. The existence alone assures the possibility of the other. Every possible blessing is also a possible pain.

Scripture to Claim:
For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.  When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.  I Corinthians 13:9-12

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