What Love Isn’t

By Lori Freeland –

“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” (I Corinthians 13: 4-8).

I’ve read I Corinthians 13 a hundred times, trying to digest and mirror the model of perfect love. I used this verse in my wedding. I used this verse in my grandmother’s eulogy. I used this verse when I became a mother.

But in striving for an understanding of what love is I’ve never twisted the words to think about what love isn’t.

Thinking about what love isn’t offers me a fresh way to view how I treat the important people in my life. Or how I should be treating my spouse, my kids, my family, and my friends. Thinking about what love isn’t helps me to see where I need to make changes in my relationships and in the way I show others I care about them.

Love isn’t rushed.

Time is a commodity of which I own very little. Most days, giving up my minutes and hours can be a greater sacrifice than writing a check. I’m guilty of giving a gift card in place of a homemade meal when a care calendar rolls around. I’ve been known to pick up a Kroger rotisserie chicken and steak potatoes after one of my friends has a new baby. But, I can’t remember the last time I’ve spent the afternoon preparing a homemade meal to bring to someone. Time shouts love so much louder than money. Time is precious. Time hurts to give. Love takes time.

Love isn’t cruel.

Why would I hurt someone I love? But I do. More often than I’d like. Isn’t love supposed to be about putting the other person first? Taking their needs into account above my own? So why do I let those harsh, destructive words fly from my mouth uncensored? Why do I put selfish desires over the ones I care about the most? Why do I forget that it takes ten good words to replace an ugly one? Love takes patience.

Love isn’t keeping score.

What have you done for me lately? I’m guilty of this in attitude, if not in words. Like a scoreboard, if I do something nice for my husband, somewhere in the back of my mind, I expect him to do something nice back. Real love gives to give. No expectations. Love rips down the scoreboard. Love doesn’t keep a tally.

Love isn’t hopeless.

Some days my emotions jump all over the place. I take what people say, or don’t say, out of perspective and I don’t feel loved. How many times have I been the cause of that feeling of worthlessness in another person? How many times have I brushed off a moment to bring hope and encouragement to those I care about? How many times have I missed the signs of need in those around me and made them feel unloved? Love brings hope.

Loving those around us is hard. Even when the bonds and the feelings run deep in relationships we’ve cultivated. We’re human. With all the shortcomings that brings. Thank goodness we have the model of ultimate love in Jesus to rely on when we can’t be what others need us to be on our own.

He Lost His Head

By Cynthia Ruchti –

“I promise it won’t hurt.”

“I’ll be there on time. I promise.”

I heard it again the other day. A dad promised his young son something not within his power to control. “I promise we’ll find your bike.”

He can promise they’ll try as hard as they can to find it. But no dad can truthfully promise the bike will be found.

King Herod feared John the Baptist. He was confused and convicted by John’s teaching, but the Bible tells us the king liked to listen to him.

John the Baptist was a truth-teller who plainly told Herod he was in an adulterous affair with Herodius, his brother’s wife. Herod had John arrested but gave him preferential treatment because he understood John was a righteous, holy man.

But Herod made a foolish promise for a foolish reason. He liked the way Herodius’ daughter danced. He promised her anything she wanted.

The girl, egged on by her hateful mother, asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. “The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her.” (Mark 6:26 NIV)

Herod knew the right thing to do. But he caved to the wrong thing because he’d made a rash, unwise promise. And John the Baptist lost his head because of it.

What kind of trouble can parents cause when they promise something to please a child, but can’t deliver on the promise? We can promise we’ll do our best. We can promise the pain is survivable and temporary. We can promise we’ll try. But only God’s promises are unfailingly reliable, because He has the power to control the outcome.

PRAYER: Lord, keep me from making ridiculous promises, and keep me faithful to my Christ-created promises to You.

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘yes’ in Christ.”( II Corinthians 1:20 NIV)

What Love Looks Like

By Kathleen Brown –

Of all the miracles we experienced during my mother’s illness, few compare with the day of the wheelchair ride.

Despite the ravages of Alzheimer’s, Dad was able to keep Mom at home until just a month before she died. But eventually the disease forced a change. Because Mom couldn’t do the rehab necessary after she broke her hip, her doctor insisted she must live where she could get professional care.

With only 24 hours before Mom was to be released from the hospital, I despaired of finding a place good enough, in Dad’s eyes, for Mom to live. Would she have a room to herself? Were there plenty of nurses? Would everything look nice? Smell nice? Would the other residents be friendly?

I needn’t have worried. The Lord led us to the place He had prepared.

Dad often tried to describe for Mom the beauty of “Golden Acres.” The landscaped grounds, the parlors, the artwork hanging in the halls. The courtyard, the gift shop and the nice ladies there. He promised her she would see it all, and she, eyes blank, looked back at him and, sometimes, smiled.

But Dad didn’t take a promise lightly.

I knew nothing about the wheelchair ride until a phone call early one evening.

“Guess what, Katrinka!” Dad boomed into my ear. “Your mother went out in the wheelchair today! The nurse put her socks and robe on her, and the physical therapy people lifted her into the wheelchair. It didn’t bother her at all! No pain! She sat up and looked around at everything.”

“We passed the nurse’s station,” he went on, “and I showed her the big TV. People waved to her and she waved right back!”

I asked if a nurse or an aide came along.

“Nope! Just your mother and I! We went everywhere. She really liked the gift shop. I knew the ladies would offer us coffee—I carried your mother’s ‘til we got out to the courtyard. It was warm enough to sit out there, so that’s where we drank our coffee.”

Before I could wonder aloud how he managed two Styrofoam cups and the wheelchair, Dad had moved on to introducing Mom to the receptionist and then sitting for a while on the walk outside, beside “those tropical-looking ferns.”

I hadn’t heard such satisfaction in Dad’s voice in years. He had wished for something: to show Mom that he had searched out, and found, a nice place for her to live. The best place. And, of course, he wanted her to see it his way—all at once, on a grand tour, led by my father himself. And he had gotten his wish. Against all odds, Mom sat in a wheelchair for two hours in the middle of the day. She had, Dad boasted, smiled, waved, enjoyed coffee, pointed to flowers, smiled some more, responded in some fashion to his undoubtedly animated commentary, and, in his words, “really had a keen day.”

All this in two hours. A true miracle.

Love may be hard to define, but it’s not hard to recognize when you see it. Those who saw Mom and Dad tooling down the halls of the nursing home that day saw love. In action. And I heard it in Dad’s voice that night. I would hear it again each time he told the story of the wheelchair ride.

From the Giver of all good gifts, love given and received and given and received. From my Father to my father. From my father to my mother.

For love at once immediate and eternal, we thank You, Lord.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17 NKJV).

For The Love of God

By Kathi Woodall –

Agapeland—many of us in our 30’s or 40’s grew up singing fun songs about a magical place whose name meant “Land of Love.” We all knew agape (pronounced a-gă-pē) love was God’s kind of love.

I’m not a kid anymore; I’m thirty-… Let’s just say I’m in that age range I mentioned earlier. Is there a grown-up story behind the magic of Agapeland?

Agape-love involves reverence, obedience, appreciation, pleasure, unwillingness to abandon, and desire. The Bible teaches about four agape-love relationships; God loves Christ and us, Christ loves us, and we can love each other.

God’s agape-love climaxes in one key passage. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10 NIV). This intense passage both defines love and is the evidence of God’s love.

God created the physical world—waterfalls, giraffes, and lilacs. He also created the conceptual world—hope, sorrow, and love. Since God created love, He also defined love. Chocolate candies and heart-shaped boxes don’t define love. Jesus’ death—His atoning sacrifice—defines love.

Friend, our sin made us the recipients of God’s wrath. God had to separate us from Himself forever. However, Jesus came as the atoning sacrifice. In so doing, Jesus turned aside God’s wrath and allowed it to pour on Him. Imagine God’s wrath—piercing as nails and burning as fire—as it poured down on each of us. Before it scalded us, however, Jesus reached out and deflected the molten stream. His nail-pierced hands turned aside the wrath of the Father so it fell on Him and not us. He said, “This is love: not that our children love us but that we love them. This is love: the wrath our children deserve will fall on me and not on them.” That’s the real definition of love.

Jesus’ death and resurrection is also the evidence of God’s love. Returning to 1 John 4:9, God evidenced His love in the ultimate way; He sent His Son to die, “that we might live through him.” He gives us eternal life on account of the Son. Our life is the evidence of His love for us.

Agape-love should also describe believers’ relationships. In and of ourselves, we are incapable of agape-love. Throughout the gospels, only God refers to Jesus as agapetos, or beloved. For example, God said at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17 KJV). The remainder of the New Testament never used it in this context again. The usage of the phrase shifted after the Holy Spirit indwelt believers. Agapetos appears 53 more times; every use is between fellow believers.

John encouraged believers to agape-love each other. We are able to because of Jesus’ sacrificial example. John wrote a few verses earlier, we, “love one another for love comes from God; everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7 NIV). Love extended to us; we extend it to others.

God’s ways are so contrary to the ways of the world! To try to fit Him into our definitions twists and warps the whole process. He is the definition of love. He is the evidence of love. He is love. When we truly know God and His feelings for each of us, then that same love naturally pours out to others. Since He loves us in this way, no reason exists as to why we should not be displaying that same love for others. Those who are loved—let us love.

The Trouble With Texting

By Cindy Martin –

My husband had just transferred to a new company and his new position required several hours of online training and certifications. It also required him being out of town more than he had before. Desiring to be intentional about our relationship, I knew we’d have to find ways to stay connected so physical distance did not also become emotional distance.

True to my multi-tasking nature, I asked my daughter to type the words I dictated to her into my phone as I drove her to school. “Hey Baby, I’m so proud of you….thank you for how hard you work for our family….love you……”

Later that day, I spoke with my husband on the phone and asked him if he’d gotten my text. When he said “no,” I sent it again, but it still didn’t go through. I’d been having some trouble with my phone so I took it in and sure enough, there was a problem. They replaced the SIM card, said it would take about an hour to recalibrate and then everything should be fine.

Right on cue my phone started, “buzz, buzz, ding, ding, beeping” as a flood of texts, messages and notifications announced their arrival – albeit delayed. I was scrolling through to see if anything still required my attention and just what I had missed during this temporary cyber hi-jacking. Nothing urgent surfaced and I was ready to soothe any anxious thoughts when my eyes glanced at a text that I assumed was from my husband. It read, “Hi, I’ve received two messages that are obviously meant for someone else, but it isn’t me. Best check your number baby!”

Gasp, gasp, ugh! “Are you serious? How did this happen?!?” Upon investigation I found out that my daughter had manually typed in my husband’s number rather than using my contact list or our existing text trail. In doing so, she was one digit out in the prefix she dialed. So close but oh so far. It reminds me of the verse in scripture “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Mark 7:6b NIV). There is much focus and attention put on love this time of year, and this incident will serve as a reminder to me to be diligent in properly communicating and directing my love…..especially to the Lover of my soul.

PRAYER: Lord, help me to love those I say I love with my actions and not just my words. May they feel my love for them in my tone of voice, my response to their needs and the priority I put on our time spent together. Lord, may that also be true of my relationship with You.

“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Mark 7:6b NIV).

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