...But Is It Love?

By Brooke Momblow

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16,18

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7

What does love look like in the details of our lives? Most people seem to think the opposite of love is hate. God tells us in his word that the opposite of love is selfishness. Today’s culture puts such an emphasis on self-care that it can be difficult to draw an appropriate line between self-care and selfishness. Self-care might look like not hanging out with toxic people and yet in Christ we are called to love the unlovable.

If we look at the list in 1 Corinthians 13 describing love, we get some ideas of what love is, but how to apply them? Do we really grasp concepts like patience? An older forgotten word for patience is forbearance, a fruit of the Spirit. Forbearance means to refrain from something, endure, be self-controlled, but it also means to abstain from the enforcement of a right. Sometimes I do have a right to expect certain things or to be treated a certain way. Acting with forbearance most certainly feels like dying to me, like being run over. But aren’t we called to love sacrificially? To lay down our lives/selves in love?

Life lived in the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit, calls us to love like Jesus. Die to self. So besides the big things like patience and being kind, what does love look like in everyday moments? What is love in the middle of an argument? Not rude is an easy answer, but what about not self-seeking? How about that person who hasn’t spoken to you, unforgiving towards you even though you weren’t in the wrong? The temptation here would be to remember their bad behavior and to hold it against them in the future or to be proud and not try to reconcile with them.

Not easily angered. Always perseveres. Always hopes. Never quits.

But is it love? For this reason I’ve been attempting to commit to memory what love is, what it looks like. I want it to permeate my spirit, so that in the heat of the moment, in the seconds I have to react, in face to face encounters with strangers or family, ‘…but is it LOVE?’ will be my first response…my only response.

Jesus help me, let me be reminded how much you have loved me, that my love continue to grow in knowledge and depth of insight, that I would never quit practicing the giving and receiving of love. Amen

“Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” – Mother Theresa

“Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him… Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness… And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself.” – Corrie ten Boom