True Love- the real one.

Here begins the Love themed month. I'm looking forward to it, really.

I'm going to share a journal entry on LOVE from earlier this year, I think. As I am not editing as I go, please excuse the incorrect use of words, irrelevant facts, and anything else that seems weird :)


    April 13th, 12:51 a.m.


Love is a choice, not a feeling.


For a while now I've known that the way we use the word love is very incorrect and what people think of as love (feelings, desires, etc.) isn't really love. But, I've just had somewhat of a revelation! I was reading the love chapter (1 Corinthians 13) and as I was reading what love is, I suddenly thought something like, "This is not the love I'm used to hearing about!" But that's just it. By telling someone you love them- in the real meaning, is like saying, "I'm patient with you, I'm not keeping track of your wrongs, I will not get easily angered by you... etc. etc." It doesn't mean, "I think you're hot, I feel good when I'm with you, You please me... etc. etc."- Which is usually what it means in our culture. A beautiful attribute of God has been twisted into a selfish pleasure of man. What's new!? I was struck with shame and regret as I read what love really is, which is something I don't show and live, CAN'T show and live in my own power. I am asking God, "Please love through me! Give me the power to love your way." Everything else comes out of that. That's sort of how I see it. Martyrdom, Faith, Prophecy- all these things count as nothing without Love. I desperately want to love- God's love.

1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version)

Love

 ¹If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

 ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 ⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
 ¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.




So good, yes? YES! Of course. 


:)


LOVE.