Love, Love, Love…

February is the month for love. There will be cards, chocolates, and other gestures of love and appreciation. They are sweet, but what if we offered a deeper love?

A love that shows up when needed. A love that is committed to hanging in there, even when the call to love is challenging, like offering correction with compassion or standing firm in truth. A love that remembers who we are when our brain has forgotten. A tough love that guides and restores, not condemns.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a tells us Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. This kind of love can be practiced in our daily interactions-whether at work, home, or in our community-by choosing patience, kindness, and forgiveness.

I am reminded of an old song by Bobby Caldwell. The chorus goes, “What you won’t do, to do for love. You’ve tried everything, but you don’t give up. In my world, only you, make me do for love, what I would not do.” I’m sure the lyrics were about romantic human love. But the love of Jesus is this kind of love and so much more.  The love of God is a deep, inclusive love for all, inviting everyone into His grace.

It is sacrificial, bloody, and redeeming. It is long-suffering. It is undeserving, amazing, and absolutely wonderful. God’s love is just, merciful, exciting, messy, complicated, exhausting, generous, plentiful, and beautiful. 

This deep love of God is for each of us. This gift of love is not so we can grab hold and keep it only for ourselves. It is a love so profound and expansive that it calls us to share it with everyone. Therefore, let us love. Beloveds, let us love fully as we are loved, spreading God's love to build God’s Kingdom and reflect His grace.

Happy Valentine’s Day, today and every day.

Love,

Pastor Candy