Bible In 90 Days: What is love?

Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'    Matthew 22:37-39

What does that look like?

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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.     I Cor. 13:4-8

The Holy Spirit has been speaking to me a lot about love. Loving myself, which I don't do consistently or well. (So, if I'm not loving me, how can I be equipped to love others? And, how do I love them well, if I'm not loving myself well? And, by the way, loving myself does not imply a selfish love.) Loving my husband. Loving my children. Loving my family. Loving those around me. And, God gave us explicit instructions, that are simple actually, on what love is. Love is a choice. It is a choice we make every.single.day and with every.single.opportunity that is presented to us. It is an act of my will.

Many times, days I have felt/still feel like this ...

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.   Romans 7:15

However, I am choosing, by an act of my will, to stand in this ...

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:13-14

I am empowered by the Holy Spirit, who lives in me. The old (my unloving, unlovable self) is gone and the new (love) has come. Love, not judge. And, love without expecting anything in return. This means myself, family, friends, people I don't know, people different from me and enemies.

 

I have understood love to deep degree's. I am learning it even deeper. Thank you Lord.