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In God's Economy... Love is Action

In God's economy

Love is Action

Many of us know the 1 Corinthians 13 which has been dubbed the "Love Chapter" of the Bible.

It has always bothered me that people say they fall in love with people because to me this means that just as fast as it can happen it can end. And if that is true that means that God can fall in and out of love with us at any given moment. And if that is true how can God be love personified if love is so wishy washy? That doesn't fit with who God says He is.

But, when people talk about love its like this mystical thing that just comes upon you. But to God and in His Word it is much more than that. It is a conscious, and deliberate action that you can control. I've listed the ways that God says we are to love. Its here both in the the traditional version that I memorized this verse in when I was a little girl and then in The Message. I love The Message version of scripture and you will see it quoted here often because it breaks the Word down in a way that speaks to the way I speak, process and understand God's Word.


1 Corinthians 13:4-8
NIV (Traditional)The Message
  • 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.
  • 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.



As I said earlier God is love and love never dies. If this is true and I believe God and His Word and that it will not return unto Him void, therefore I have to believe that you cannot just fall out of love with someone. Either you stopped loving them or you never loved them in the first place.

Whether it is platonic love, romantic love, love of family;
Love is and always will be a verb.

How do you show love to your children? Through patience when they work your nerves. Or when I tell my one year old son to stop and he does it anyway holding my temper in check show him that I love him.

How do you show your neighbor love? Through kind acts, not coveting what they have, and by not forcing my beliefs on them.

How do you show love to your spouse? By keeping a short record of their perceived wrongs. By letting arguments and hurts live in the past and not looking back to them to throw in their face in a future argument. Through forgiveness, always looking for the best in them, being with them in the good times and bad.

The reason many marriages end in divorce is not because you fell out of love but because you stopped doing the work of love. You stopped being kind. You stopped being patient. You became prideful. You started being rude. Your record of wrongs became endlessly long. You didn't persevere. You gave up. Don't get me wrong there are times when there are things that a partner does (infidelity, bodily harm) that can destroy a marriage, a family but more often than not marriages and family bonds don't end on a whim. They end over time - days, months, years, decades - of inaction, of not loving.

We stop loving people all the time. We stop calling. We are inconsistent. We become short tempered with them. We become more focused on ourselves than the other person. We get brand new. We start smelling ourselves. That's why young people can be best friends one minute and enemies the next. We need to own the fact that we stop doing the work of love and when you don't have God in you, honestly it is quite easy to stop doing that work. Because even when God is in you it is difficult to love.


Love is not easy but we have to own our part in love.


You don't fall out of love. You just stop doing love. There's a difference.




The Unlikely Missionary,

DHW
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