TAKE THE LOVE DECISION

TAKE THE LOVE DECISION

Anchor: 1^st Cor 13: 4-7

    4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Sequel to MONIC’s last post -“If you’ve never loved you’ve never lived” a lot may wonder and say “well I love this person or that thing so phew! I’m alive” Well, amazingly I wasn’t writing telling you that if you’ve never felt some form of affection for a particular person, group of people or if there isn’t a certain thing that endears you then you’ve never lived. No. Truth is in my very short life, and especially very recently, I’ve come to realize that love is more a decision than it is a feeling.

One time the HOLY SPIRIT teaching me about the words written in the BIBLE; As believers, we know surely that the BIBLE is GOD’s instruction manual to us HIS children. But I wonder, how come GOD never tells us things like “Don’t forget to breathe” or “take a bath each day” or “put on some clothes dear one”? The reason is simply that those are things that come as defaults to the human being. Love is mentioned so many times in the BIBLE and it wasn’t just mentioned but commanded. The BIBLE says loving the LORD your GOD with all that you are, and loving your neighbour as yourself is a commandment! (Deut 6:5) Commandments are meant to be obeyed. They are commands from GOD. It’s a rule and to GOD, it is rule number 1 and rule number greatest!

If love is primarily a feeling, then It would come as default to all men, but the kind of love GOD desires and expects from us does not come by default, it’s primarily a decision. It’s firsts in obedience to HIS commands. The feeling only comes after you have invested so much in your object of love and he/she becomes too valuable to wade off.

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Today, as our anchor verses have given us the characteristics of this most important virtue, it simply tells us that as soon as you make the decision to run this love race, you must be patient and in your patience, you are kind and not grumpy as though the people around are the reason why your waiting. (Even if they may be!) Next, you make a decision not to be jealous of the things someone else possesses and if you are privileged to have certain things, you must make the decision neither to be boastful nor proud. You must decide primarily to speak with every one kindly not demanding your own way. Yes we will face a lot of characters doing this and get responses, but we must never be irritated, keeping no records of any wrongs anybody has done, whether they knew they hurt you or not, their lack of apologies notwithstanding. We must stand for what is right, rejoicing when things are done rightly. Then we will get uncomfortable at injustice, fighting for those homeless and denied of clothing and food. As we do this, we will make progress by doing it over and over again, never giving up, never losing faith, always hopeful, soaring through every circumstance knowing that we can never fail!

That my dear is true love. So take that person around you, the community you live in, and let them be your love project.

Please take note again that love is not first a feeling. True and definite love comes firstly because we are commanded to do so and secondly also as a result of the value generated from our love actions, prayers and words toward our love object (in our case GOD and everyone).

Confession: I am patient and kind. I am not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. I do not demand my own way. I am not irritable, and I keep no record of being wronged. I do not rejoice about injustice but rejoice whenever the truth wins out. I never give up, never lose faith, I am always hopeful, and endure through every circumstance.

Loving you forever.

MONIC