Love knows no limit to its endurance,
no end to its trust,
no fading of its hope;
it can outlast anything.
It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.
1 Corinthians 13: 7, 8 - {Phillips}
Valentine's Day is just a couple of days away. It's a day on the calendar to remind us to show a gesture of love.
Will it be chocolates, a sweet card, a special dinner out?
And yet...
True love - authentic love - should not be reserved for just one day, but rather it is a constant and continual act of self-denial, a willingness to put other's needs above one's own. It's self-sacrificial.
Love is patient
love is kind and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant,
does not act unbecomingly;
it does not seek its own,
is not provoked,
does not take into account a wrong suffered,
does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth;
bears all things,
believes all things,
hops all things,
endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 - {NASB}
Now, THAT is love!
I pray that I would love not only in word, but in actions of selflessness.
I pray that my husband and children would see what real and true love looks like by my example. Not only that they would feel loved by me, but by me, they would know how to love too.
With true love - authentic love - there is only one thing missing...pride. I've learned over the years that my pride keeps Me in the forefront with little regard for others. Ouch. That smarts just as much now as it ever has. It's a relentless struggle - pride and Me, pride in me.
It is essential that we show love frequently and regularly, and yet, this one day on the calendar does serve us well. It reminds us to say, by way of a card or sweets, or maybe a flower... "I am thinking of you.", and that is a good place to start loving.
Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. {John 15:13}
"Love is not love
ReplyDeleteWhich alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;"
(Shakespeare)
Besides the Bible, this is my favorite description of love. As I read through the verses you posted, and Shakespears gorgeous 116th Sonnet, I am reminded that Love is not a fluffy feeling that our society paints it to be. "Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom." as another part of the sonnet says, it does not change over a couple days. And it is not a easy thing, as the Corinthians verse states, and looking at that verse, it will take our entire lives to even come a wee bit close to what love really is.
This post is why I am so in LOVE with you. God has blessed me with not just a wife but a Godly Bride and I am so thankful for that. I pray everyday "God please allow me this day to show my bride more love than I showed her yesterday".
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