B-log

Recap:

• Intro - making love
• Part 1 - love gives life meaning
• Part 2 - love takes time
• Part 3 - what happens when you hurry love 

Continuing my unintended trend of interweaving this conversation with music videos, here’s a classic “on-topic” song, by the greatness that is Johnny Lee - Looking for Love:

I actually thought it was Mickey Gilley who sang it, but I think he just covered it for the epic John-Travolta-as-the-Urban-Cowboy movie Urban Cowboy.

But I digress. 

Probably many people can relate with the disappointing, depressing, downer realities of this song…of looking for love in all the wrong places. Good grief, I know I did. As a result, I experienced (and expressed) a lot of the “not love” antitheses that are explained in part 3, where God talks about love from the perspective of all the things it’s not. Most of us can identify at least one relationship in our life…maybe current relationship, hopefully past relationship…that was marked by selfishness, arrogance, pride, blame, and/or other ugliness.

God doesn’t limit love by explaining what it isn’t, though. He moves forward and reveals the characteristics of love by what love can do…what it is able to accomplish. In reading this list in 1 Corinthians 13:7, note that none of these accomplishments is instantaneous. They take time. And as such, it shows that pursuing love is a life-long, never-ending quest that is worth the investment and self-sacrifice.

Love Bears all Things

This Greek verb for “bears” (stego) means “to cover.” Compare this bear versus bare, which means to exploit. It means to protect. When you love, you are willing to protect those you love rather than exploit them.

Think about this from a practical application. When someone offends you or hurts you, the normal, natural reaction is to recoil from them and to leave them unprotected to face the consequence of their actions. However, when you love someone, the only appropriate response is to cover them, to cover their offense with grace. 

It’s not just a matter of “putting up with their junk.” It means actively reacting to a wrong with grace. It means approaching others with a disciplined intentionality to respond to their ugliness with kindness, to their tactlessness with mercy, and to maliciousness with love.

Love Believes all Things

When you believe all things in love, it means you opt for the most favorable option. Job’s friends didn’t operate out of love, they blamed him for the problems befalling him. When you love people, you want to believe in the best option possible.

At this suggestion, most people would say, “Don’t be naïve.”  However, this is exactly what God wants. He wants you to be naïve. That doesn’t mean you are being stupid. It means that by faith, you are believing that the other person is capable of something far better, far superior than what is typically expected.

Believe that other people won’t let you down. Believe that others won’t habitually hurt you. Believe that others can overcome their dysfunctions. Believe that God loves these “others” at least as much as he loves you, and what he has accomplished in you he can accomplish in others. You see, in doing this, you evidence much more your faith in God than your faith in these other people.

Love Hopes all Things

“Hope” is so much more than just “wishful thinking” or even “lofty ideals.” In the context of love, “hoping all things” means to place a positive confidence or expectation for that person. It means to expect that failure will give way to success, that Christ will claim victory in that person’s life.  This hope is held in close context to the “belief” in all things. 

Again, this idea reflects more of your belief in God than in the other person. If your hope is in the God who parted the Red Sea, who turned water into wine, who healed the sick, who rose from the dead, and who rescued your soul from hell and placed you into heaven, surely you can expect lesser blessings in God’s work in the life of those you love.

Love Endures all Things

This Greek word for “endures” is a military term that means to hold a position at all costs. It means that for those you love, you are willing to endure their offenses, their rebellion, their violence against you. If you have ever sinned or rebelled against your parents, this very concept is why they didn’t pitch you out the first time you messed up. Truly, this endurance is an unending climax of love.

These four characteristics of love presents an ascending order of the love process. When you love with agape love, you first bear all things. When you feel you can’t bear any more, you continue to bear, but you do so because you believe all things. Then when your belief wanes, it doesn’t cease because you hope for all things. And finally, when you feel as though you can hope no longer, you endure. You endure because you love and while you endure, you continue to bear, you continue to believe, and you continue to hope. That is sacrificial, selfless love and that is what God does with you on a daily basis.

Next: Part 5 - Conclusion, the power of love. (Surely, you can predict the accompanying song)