Love – The Complete Picture

Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

We looked at a portion of what love looks like based on the description God has given us. Let’s remind ourselves and then finish applying the rest of this portrait to our actions.

Learn to think of others first!

Empathize

Serve others instead of always being served

Surrender your agenda

To really love means interacting with others.

Share your life with others

Once again we see the proactive drive of love. Many people use the terms “shy” and “introvert” to justify a lifestyle that is not open to share with others. A true introvert is a person that loses energy the more they are around people. This only means that they need time to rebuild energy after interacting with groups or individuals. This does not mean they stay to themselves and do not interact with other human beings. God is called both extrovert and introvert to community. Real love is willing to take the risk of sharing yourself with others, be careful of the drive to become a private person… It usually exposes a lack of willingness to be held accountable and it clearly shows an unhealthy love for self.

Consider what the Scriptures communicate in how we are to share ourselves:

John 15:15 "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

2 Cor. 7:3   I do not speak to condemn you; for I have said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together.

1 Thess. 2:8  We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.

Evaluate your priorities

In this success driven and task oriented world we live in, it is easy for us to misplace our priorities. Love will always have as its priority God and other people at the top of its list. “Things” may be important, but they never take a priority over our relationship to our Lord and to other human beings in the community. That is one of the dangers of religiosity, their misplaced priorities have made what should be a vibrant, living relationship with God and others, nothing more than a perfunctory list of things that we do that make us feel justified in righteous. Jesus spoke the most bluntly and harshly about this mentality:

Matthew 23:23  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Luke 20:46-47  "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."

Listen

This shows your interested in what a person has to say. There is no worse experience than to be sharing your heart and the person you are talking to is looking at their watch, texting on their phone or just looking around. Eye to eye contact is a very important love language. It communicates a desire to engage the person that is talking to you. Consider, the God of the universe listens to us!

Psalm 116:1-2 I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.

1 Peter 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."

Faithful

Love will be consistent even if it hurts. What that means is that love will be fully committed to doing the hard things; forgiving no matter, taking responsibility for mistakes and tough love. Real love is mature enough to deal with these situations.

Proverbs 11:13   A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.

Proverbs 27:6  Faithful are the wounds of a friend

Luke 16:10  "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much

Consider what this picture shows us!

Learn to think of others first!

Empathize

Serve others instead of always being served

Surrender your agenda

Share your life with others

Evaluate your priorities

Listen

Faithful

Less Self = this only begins with a willful decision

? Question ?

Are You Working With God To Produce 

His Kind Of Love In You?

Or

Are You Just Thinking It Will Happen?