Weekly Devotional- Love (Part 2)

"Love is an excellent thing and a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy. It bears a burden without being weighted, and renders sweet all that is bitter. Love knows no limits, feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, because it believes that it may and can do all things; for this reason it is able to do all, performing much where he who does not love fails and falls." ~The Imitation of Christ

Last week, I wrote a devotional on the love between God and men. However, as you might have noticed if you went outside recently, there's somebody besides God to direct our love towards: other people. There are several different types of love that can exist between two people (if you haven't read it already, C.S. Lewis's book The Four Loves goes into a lot of wonderful detail on this), but for the purposes of this post, I'm going to be talking about agape love. Unlike other types of love, we are called to have this kind of love for everybody. It is self-sacrificial and is a mirror of the love between men and God. The love we have for other people should be modeled after the love God has for us. "By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." (1 John 3:16)

So what does this kind of love look like?

First of all, like God's love for us, our love for others must be steadfast. "The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." (Psalm 103:8) Love endures through difficulty and hardship. It does not fall away or diminish when it encounters obstacles. "A friend loves at all times." (Proverbs 17:17a) In addition, our love must be steadfast even when it is not reciprocated. God calls us to love others regardless of whether they love us or not.

Second, love is merciful and forgiving. Forgiveness can be difficult. Bess Streeter Aldrich (she's a Nebraska author whose books I really enjoy) said in her book Miss Bishop that "love is not blind, it merely sees that which another cannot."  To forgive people, we often must ask God for His eyes, to see that person as He does, to see what we otherwise would not. God loves that person, as must we. However, this does not necessarily mean feeling pleasant towards them or treating them the exact same way as you would someone else. In certain cases, if there has been wrong between two people, it is not possible to go back to relating to each other in the same way they did before. However, we are always called to desire the best--ultimately, salvation--for each and every person, whether or not they have harmed us.

Finally, and most importantly, since everything else springs from this, true love is self-sacrificial. Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) Now, this rarely means that we must physically die in order to show love for our friends. But as St. Paul says in Romans 12:1, we are called to be "living sacrifices." We don't have to physically die in order to sacrifice, but we must "crucify the flesh with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24) That is, we must give up our own desires in order to serve others. "Love does not insist on its own way. it is not irritable or resentful." (1 Corinthians 13:5, emphasis mine)

This love shows itself in small ways. Mother Teresa said, "Smile at each other...it doesn't matter who it is... and that will help you grow up in greater love for each other." It pleases God when we do little things, everyday tasks, with great love. Smiling at your family, cleaning the house without complaint, doing schoolwork in a timely manner, making use of the gift of time He has given us, refraining from unkind words, getting a little brother a drink of water--even the most insignificant duties can be glorified with love.

It will not always be easy. No, sometimes we will not feel like loving people. But true love is not based on emotion. Emotions arise unbidden and depart when they please, and a love based on emotion is inconstant. Love is a giving of oneself, no matter what. One trap Satan sometimes uses here is the bogey of legalism. Some Christians fall into thinking that if they don't "feel" love when doing something, but do it anyways, that is just "fulfilling duty" or "legalism." My friends, this is not legalism, this is spiritual discipline. C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters that Satan's cause "is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God's] will, looks round upon a universe from which ever trace of Him seems to have vanishes, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." We must sacrifice and obey even when it is difficult, even when we do not feel like it. However, even if the path of love and obedience seems hard, how much more full of pain and suffering is the road of indifference or hate!

Love is the center of the Christian life. I have not even begun, with my small wisdom and weak words, to touch upon it. This is a Bible study blog--if you have something to add, by all means post in the comment section and build up your fellow sisters in Christ.