Love

One way to check out our love for others is to analyze the first thoughts that come to mind when we think of a particular person—your neighbor perhaps, a friend, or your spouse’s friend.

Is it their shortcomings or weaknesses we recall about them or do we see the good qualities: compassion, kindness, generosity, loyalty and honesty?

Remember, love thinks no evil. However, it doesn’t mean it is blind to the weaknesses of others as if they didn’t matter, or exist. Rather, it looks beyond them, accenting the best qualities in people, even those we find hard to love.

We constantly need to examine our response to others in the light of a passage such as 1 Corinthians 13:4 and 5 which says . . .

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end. Love never dies
(From “The Message” by Eugene Peterson).

If negative attitudes quickly surface, if glaring defects always loom up before us, try to see others through God’s eyes. Through the eyes of Love.

Pastor Willy