God is really unrelenting when it comes to how much He is willing to show us His love: we literally can’t escape it. And yet, how often do you find yourself feeling unloved? Alone? Empty? I know this is common to the human experience, and it saddens me. We have a love that so readily available, and we can still find ourselves in moments where we refuse to accept or recognize that love.
Additionally, we don’t share that love as willingly as He has called us to. Sometimes I think it’s because we don’t feel a particular person deserves or has earned our love, but that’s ridiculous, because we know we have done nothing to earn the love God gives us. Scripture (and just simply living life) clearly points out the fact that we are all undeserving of the free and endless gift of love He gives us. So, I had to check myself and remember that I can’t hold out on loving if God isn’t doing that with me!
The Lord put it on my heart to read 1 Corinthians 13 every day. I have been doing it for the last two weeks and I can’t explain how much it has opened my eyes. I am reading it in the Message version, and my goodness, ya’ll! It’s crazy how personal God can get when we let Him. I LOVE everything about this scripture, and it’s really doing a work on me.
I want to encourage you all to read it as regularly as you want to, but perhaps you can join me in personally reading it every day this work week before 8 A.M. We all know God’s word can transform us in ways we never thought possible. What if He helped us to feel love and show love a little more freely? I know that’s what I am hoping for!
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
