Love: Prelude to a Diss

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails... 

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

If the Bible can be played, then this is one of the most played verses EVER. We hear it all the time at weddings. In fact, I've heard it so many times, that I have VOWED this will not be read at my own (wedding date currently unknown/unplanned). Today, though, this scripture was particularly hard to read because it's really quite convicting when you use it as a litmus test for the question: does love abide in me?

The first time I started writing this blog, it was all jokes and sarcasm. All plays on the different characteristics of love...but this is so serious. Perhaps we'd grasp the gravity of the situation if we read from the beginning of chapter 13. Why do people start at verse 4? Let's start at the beginning, at 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. Let's de-romanticize the whole thing, by introducing what I call the "Prelude to a Diss." The popular verses 4 - 8 are not some mere commentary on what love is. When read in conjunction with the first three verses, it is about all the things we HAVE to be. It's about all the characteristics we HAVE to possess. And I find myself lacking.

And I've been writing and re-writing, trying to figure out what is my major issue. And I think I've found it: I simply can't get hurt. If you hurt me bad enough, every single thing in the chain of love breaks down. It makes sense: it's hard to love you while you're hurting me. Scripture talks all the time about loving your enemies, and turning the other cheek...but what does that LOOK like? I think it looks like this:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

Romans 5:8 

While we were yet sinners. That means while we were still committing sins. That means while we were hurting God, Christ died for us. That's why John 3:16 is powerful; God didn't love just any world, He loved the world that rejects Him, that doubts Him, and that hurts Him with its sin. And so, I have to learn to love through the hurt. I'm talking major hurt (all manner of betrayal). I have to because I'm commanded to:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another

John 13:34

I heard a pastor say before that the command wasn't new. And it wasn't..."love thy neighbor" had been said before. But you know what was new about it? Now it had an example. Now there was a standard. A lofty, hard-to-reach standard. This is why love is a "fruit of the spirit" (see Galatians 5:22); because its a supernatural ability. Love in spite of crappy treatment is a supernatural ability. I pray that the Lord works that fruit in my life. In greater measure. I love, but I don't love as He has. 

Just some food for thought.