I Love You

 

     What is Love exactly? Is it hugs and kisses? Romantic letters and steamy nights? Is it x's and o's or hearts and Valentines?? Those are all good and great but they are not true love- they are expressions of love (some) can be mistaken for love when they are in fact expressions of lust)...the products of Love. 

     I was trying to teach my kids Sunday what Love truly is..and I thank God (literally) that He already has told us- not what Love is like, but what Love is. You can find it in 1Corinthians 13:4-8. The best part of all this is, all the things that Love is, God is because God is Love. So once we realize this and grasp it and believe it, how can we not go to Him with our concerns, requests and cares? How could we ever think He doesn't care or understand what we are going through? I know we aren't supposed to change the words of the Scriptures as far as adding or taking away...but if you replace the word "Love" with "God"....I'm pretty sure He wouldn't mind since they are one in the same.

Love God is patient and kind. Love God is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It  God is not self seeking. It  God is not irritable, and it God keeps no record of being wronged. It God does not rejoice in evil but rejoices in the truth. Love God never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.Love God never fails.

I want my children to grow up and pit every relationship, every butterfly feeling in their tummies and every crush up against this verse. It will eliminate so many time wasters and heart breakers. If you are not allowed to make mistakes because they are always thrown up in your face- that's not Love.If you are with someone controlling or jealous- that's not Love. 

Likewise, how can we say we love the Lord but are homophobic, or anti-Jew or 

 pro-white? I think this says it best:

People, as Christians we were never called to hate, to judge or to condemn. We can not and should not bully and bash people into a relationship with God. It's got to start with Love. WE must love others, not what they do or what they say or how they act, but THEM. Love them the way God loved us when we were at our worst. Love covers a multitude of sin. Love is Patient,Love is KIND. Whether we like it or not, if we profess to be Christians then the world will look at us as an example of the Lord. How can we ever draw the world in if we exemplify a Condemning God? 
Final words:

Romans 8:1-2

"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death."