33. Love always…
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:6-7
If love were a person what would it look like? How would we recognise love if we met it on the street? Paul describes love in these few words and the predominant one is: always.
Love isn’t a part time, do it when we feel like it thing. It’s like being a wife or husband, a parent, a friend. These are not roles we do when we feel like it. I am a wife and a mother always regardless. In many ways, I am defined by these. Paul defines love by its attributes – what makes love, love.
Let’s unpack what he says:
- Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth…
I don’t like watching the news or reading the newspaper. Not because I don’t want to know what is going on but because there is an overwhelming emphasis on the bad stuff. We see the graphic images of war, carnage on the road, murder and mayhem. We are reduced to fear, our stomachs twist and we find ourselves not able to live the lives God intended for us. There is almost a macabre delight in the evil that is perpetrated around us. When the innocent are killed in random acts of terrorism, or on the roads. When someone close is being bullied, intimidated, wrongly accused. When a child is abused. When thousands die of starvation whilst war rages around them. So, what is the truth in the midst of all this evil? Is it that evil will always triumph, that we have no power to change things around? Must we accept what we see and hear as the truth and cower in fear?
There is another response, a love response, that struggles with feelings of righteous anger, that wants to stop the evil and replace it with good. Paul tells us that love rejoices in the truth. We live in a world full of lies. Lies that tell us that all priests are paedophiles; that all Muslims are terrorists; that poverty can’t be changed; that black skinned people have lesser value than white skinned people. The list goes on. We avoid the truth because we don’t want to offend or, even worse, we don’t want to do what is needed to bring it into being. You see the truth is not always what is happening. The truth is in God and through his eyes we can see it, what this world could and should look like, and rejoice. Real love always looks beyond the lies, the evil, to see what God’s truth in the situation is. Real love rejoices in that truth and seeks the part they should play in bringing it into being – pray, write a letter, send money, take a refugee into your home, go and be part of the solution. Love that rejoices in the truth is active love.
2. Love always protects…
The origins of the word protect come from Latin and translates literally as “covered in front”. Protection is like a shield for battle. Love doesn’t stop us going into battle but it provides the protection we need to face whatever happens. It’s a bit like the child who is determined to skateboard down the hill. The mother’s response can go two ways – she can flatly refuse the child, lock them up inside the house, confiscate the board. This is not love, this is not protection – this teaches fear and withdrawal from the challenge. Or the mother can agree to the challenge and then provide the right gear for the child so that, protected, covered in front, they can still experience the challenge, the thrill.
God’s love for us is protective – he sends us out into the world, as he did his disciples, but he equips us for the fray (think of the armour in Ephesians 6). Let’s show our love for others by protecting them for what lies ahead.
3. Love always trusts…
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5
One of my favourite verses says it all. In a world built on mistrust, on fear of our neighbour, God asks us to swim upstream against the tide of suspicion and to trust. First, we trust God for everything we need, each step we take, knowing that he loves us so absolutely that he can only desire good for us. Our love for him, in return, expresses itself in trust. Second, we trust other people. Sometimes we will be hurt but we will have shown our love for them by trusting them and, who knows, our expression of love through trust may change a life…
4. Love always hopes…
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Hebrews 10:23
The dictionary defines hope as a feeling of expectation and desire for something. But hope is so much more than a feeling, it is an attribute of love. When we love God we confidently hope in the promises he has given to us. Hope is a state of the heart that holds unswervingly to the promises of God with an expectation of a complete and full life despite surrounding circumstances.
The hope we have in the promises of our loving God will flow through our love for others. We have hope for our children who may not be walking with God. We have hope for those who are suffering, who are persecuted. Hope puts colour onto the canvas of our lives – hope is a rainbow, a promise of good and perfect things. Hope springs up in the desert (Isaiah 43:19).
5. Love always perseveres…
May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.
2 Thessalonians 3:5
There used to be an advertisement on television for a paint product with the tag line “keeps on keeping on”. Whatever the weather threw at that paint it just didn’t fade, chip, peel or degenerate. Perseverance is about “keeping on keeping on” regardless of what life throws at us. We push on, push through towards the goal.
Love is the motivator for perseverance. When we truly love God, love others, our desire will always be to achieve what we set out to do, to become who we are meant to be. We will want the best for God, for ourselves, for our families and friends, and beyond our circle of life to the whole of mankind. And, in that unconditional, all-encompassing love lies the wherewithal to persevere, keep on keeping on until we attain.
Prayer: I admit to struggling with love at the moment. There is much happening in my life and I find myself not wanting to get out of bed in the morning. I pray for an increase in the “always” love that rejoices in the truth, protects, trusts, perseveres, and hopes so that I can weather the storms of life, stick to the agenda, and be victorious.
Amen
Action: Today, ask God which of these attributes of love always you need more of as you go into your day
Journal your thoughts…
