Week 33 The Way of Love

Can we agree that God IS love? Do you remember when Jesus told His people to Love each other as He has Loved us? When He commanded you to love Him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, AND to love your neighbor AS yourself? He said THAT was more important than ALL the burnt offerings and sacrifices. 

                                                   That makes me think of 1 Corinthians 13.

But first, Psalm 103:8-12 explains how God expresses Love:
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

That’s how God loves you. In Truth, you can only love others to the same degree you love yourself.  Understanding the depth and breadth of your Father’s love for you allows you to freely love yourself. Then you are able to manifest the Love He has shown you to others.

                            Our Heavenly Father does not ask us to love in a way He does not Himself love.

1 Corinthians 13 shows us how to love, yes, but also details how God loves us. So often we put pressure on ourselves to love others like this without understanding that God himself loves us this way first. 

For instance, I have struggled with the fact that God truly keeps no record of my wrongs, which made it hard to let go of others wrongs. But when I understood and internalized that God doesn’t accuse, throwing my transgressions away as far as the east is from the west, I could let go of others faults more easily.

If He asks you to turn the other cheek, do you think He does not? If He asks you not to be offended by insults, do you think He can be offended? If He asks you not to be provoked to anger, do you think He is easily provoked?
                                                                                    God is 1 Corinthians 13.

1 Co 13
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.