Love the Right Way

I think it’s possible to love the wrong way. My intentions can show that I might put a limit on how far or how much love I might give. They can tell me if I’ve mistaken love for something else, or if I’ve ignored it for shameful reasons. That’s loving all wrong. But ”the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable” (Psalm 10:32).

Loving the right way doesn’t come with butterflies. It doesn’t come with an A+ or a round of applause. You don’t always get a feeling or a voice in the night. Loving the right way is patient, it’s righteous, godly, and it takes your whole being. Loving the right way takes practice. And it’s not easy. It speaks through everything you do. It brings you closer to God, to His glory, to His people. And it will always return.

1 Corinthians 13

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity sufferth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth (boasts) not itself, is not puffed up,

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. ~~~