I just submitted this article to be published in our church’s monthly newsletter. I talked briefly about love. Our goal as followers of Christ is to love like Christ. It is not always easy. But God never commands us to do easy things…He commands us to do those things which require is strength!
This month we celebrate Valentine’s Day. In this time much is said about “love”. If you ask 5 people to define love, you’ll probably get 5 different definitions. Our society has many ways to define and describe love. In fact we use the word so often that it loses meaning. How can we use the same word to say “I love my children” and “I love ice cream”? Obviously the word means many things.
In the Scriptures we have the clearest definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13. The type of love described here is the love believers should have for one another. Even though this passage is often recited at weddings, it is not primarily a romantic love. Verses 4-7 say that love is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not arrogant, not rude, not selfish, not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in evil but rejoices in truth. The Bible says that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” What a high standard! This is how we are to relate to one another as followers of Christ.
As followers of Jesus, we are to model His life. We are to live like He lived and love like He loved. In fact we can take these 14 descriptions of love and insert the name of Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love. We can read these verses and replace the word ‘love’ with the name ‘Jesus’. This gives us a great picture of the character of Christ. Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind, etc.
May God strengthen us to live out this Christ-like love towards one another!
A Pastor's Thoughts 