Love Endures All Things
Love endures all things. If you’ve been reading along, congratulations on making it this far. If you haven’t, don’t worry it’s not too late. Thinking about how to write this post, I wanted to essentially repeat Love Is Not Resentful, but I realized I’d be missing out on so much if I were to limit the scope of this post to just that. So, I set out to understand this phrase and here is where it led me.
Love has no kryptonite. There isn’t anything that love cannot overcome. I’m sure you can come up with a few ‘but’s right now, however hold that for later. Pure, unadulterated love can overcome any act, situation or circumstance. There is no qualification in the text. Love endures. End of story.
This isn’t our experience. I’m not trying to discount our experience, because I haven’t seen this type of love, either. This love that endures all makes no sense, especially in this context. But, that’s only because this world is populated with people full of good intentions, but little idea how to put them into action.
Loving well is hard. That’s right. It takes time and effort, but the end result is a love stronger than Superman. I’d hinted at it earlier, but I had to say it. There is nothing greater on this earth, and as Jesus showed us on the cross, or in the heavens than pure love. There are few descriptive phrases about God in the Bible, but the fact that God is love (or some form of this) appears multiple times tells us something both about Him and about love itself. Part of our likeness of God is our great ability to love, but it doesn’t just work right out of the box.
Love redeems. I think this is the ultimate statement about love. The fact is, without love, we all would be lost, hopeless. Without love, we would all be left for dead in a proverbial ditch. God wasn’t satisfied with this scenario, therefore He sent His Son to impute His perfection to us all. Sinners of all kinds and degrees were redeemed and made perfect before God on that day. This is the power of love.
What can love not do? I’m genuinely asking you now. Love, against our experiences, is greater than anything with which we will come into contact. It’s up to us to put in the time, the effort and steadily work toward this pristine opportunity. We don’t have to, but the decision is ours. Today, will you begin or continue the work toward a love like God’s that endures all things?