LOVE. Part 1

Tonight, I was reading my bible. I try to read before I go to bed on most nights. I usually pick it up and go to where I feel the Lord is leading me to read. Tonight I decided to just open to the place I had the book mark tab in and just read. I opened to Mark 12. As I read, I came to Mark 12: 28-31 which reads, "One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” (NLT)


AfterI read this I thought, "Well if God commands us to love him and others, then I guess it's important to look at his definition of love in order to carry this out." So I turned to the ever popular verse of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 which reads, "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud  or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."


I gave you the whole verse, but I'm going to be honest, I stopped reading in the third word of the first sentence that read "patient". Who knew such a word could carry so much weight.


If tells us that the most important thing for us to do is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength, AND to love others as well, then he's asking us to be PATIENT with all our, hearts, souls, minds, strength, AND with others. 


It's so easy brag about the time spent with God, going to church, etc. But what I got from this passage is that what God really wants us to do is to love Him with everything we have and by his definition of love, apart of loving him is being patient with Him with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength. 


I will confess that I do not show God this kind of patients, yet he still loves me unconditionally. I will be the first to tell you that I will happily share what I have done for the Lord quicker than being patient with Him when things don't go as I planned them. God shows me so much love and so much patience and I hate to say that I do not give it back very freely in return.


The beauty of God's love is that he does not need us to give Him love, He's fine without it, but He does want us to love Him, because he knows it's what will bring us the most joy and fulfillment. 


After moving past the reality of the first word in describing love, I knew I would find that I do not live and love God in the other ways he describes love. But this motivates me to want to be this way, to want to love him with all my heart, soul, mind, strength, and others in the way he tells us to. And the cool thing is that I can! He models this kind of love with me everyday!


I have more that I would like to share about being patient with God and the other descriptions he gives to help us know what he means by love but I am exhausted so part 2 of this blog will come at a later time......