What It Means To Love

Below is an email message I received just today. After reading it, felt that it was something worth sharing...

Subject: What It Means To Love
[Love]... believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. - 1Corinthians 13:7
Love..."believes all things." Love believes the best about others ---always! When someone you care about is called into question, love says:"You don't know what you're talking about; that's not the kind of person he is. That's not what she meant." Listen again: "[Love] hopes all things." Love sees people not as they are, but as they will be by God's grace. Wouldn't it be great if God could download that kind of love into all our hearts? Then Paul adds that love "endures all things." Endure is a military term. It means driving a stake into the ground - isn't that great? It's like, "I'll stand my ground in loving you."

In his book Love, Acceptance & Forgiveness, Jerry Cook describes a church in Washington state that grew in 14 years to more than 4,000 people. The book includes a commitment the people at that church made to each other. It says: "You'll never knowingly suffer at my hands. I'll never knowingly say or do anything to hurt you. I'll always, in every circumstance, seek to help and support you. If you're down and I can lift you, I'll do that. If you need something and I have it, I'll share it with you. If I need to, I'll give it to you. No matter what I find out about you, no matter what happens in the future - either good or bad - my commitment to you will never change. And there's nothing you can do about it!" Today pray, "Lord help me to love like that."

by Bob Gass of The Vine