Love

       One of the {many} things I’ve realized this past week is the lack of love in my life. I am such an incredibly selfish person. Everything comes down to me; what I want, what I feel, what I need. Even with people I truly love, I think more about my own comfort rather than theirs. And it is so frustrating, because I love this person, and yet all I can think about is myself. I am so human.
        I don’t want to be human; I want to be godly.
  In one of Francis Chan’s books (I’m embarrassed to say I can’t remember whether it was Crazy Love or Forgotten God. Probably the former), he shares an exercise that I found extremely convicting. He took the passage about love from 1 Corinthians 13 and swapped the word ‘love’ with his name.
I’ve inserted my own name and gender in the passage below, but go ahead and put in your own name as you read. You tell me if you don’t feel even slightly convicted.

        Mariah is patient and kind; Mariah does not envy or boast; she is not arrogant or rude. She does not insist on her own way; she is not irritable or resentful; she does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Mariah bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

I don’t know about you, but I know for me that paragraph is a complete lie. I am not patient; I am not always kind. I envy, I want my own way, I’m irritable. I am the complete opposite of those verses.
But that is how we are called to be. We are called to personify the love of Christ. Not the I’ll-love-you-as-long-as-you-benefit-me love of the world, but the selfless, whole-hearted love that Jesus showed in giving up His life for us – condemned sinners, who dared to spit in the face of God.
Everything comes down to how we love. How we live, how we treat others... I pray that God would fill me with His love, thus enabling me to pour it out on others. And I pray the same for you.

“Love is patient and kind; 

love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 

~1 Cor. 13:4-7 (ESV)

~Riah