A FULLY FORMED LOVE
A fully formed, consuming, wholly self-sacrificing love? Have you ever been able to experience this kind of love? Do you believe it is possible?
Have you failed in the love department? Do you know why?
With four separate ways to describe love the Greeks didn’t have quite the problem we have. Thank God for the Holy Scriptures for in them we are given some help.
In his 2009 book, KNOWING CHRIST TODAY: WHY WE CAN TRUST SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE, noted author Dallas Willard directs us to the Bible for some helpful insights into the true nature of love.
In Chapter 3, of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossian church he references love as an attitude of tender mercy, kindness, patience and thankfulness (gratitude) towards others.
In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, in the famous chapter on love, chapter 13, he lists a number of highly desirable attributes that one might possess. But, to possess them without love, they would be meaningless.
Later in the chapter, he defines what love is and is not.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy, does not behave rudely; does not think evil thoughts.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and is able to endure all things.
Wow! No wonder!, you say, Who is able to love like that?
No one can ALONE, all by themselves. And that, in a nutshell is the whole point of this Blog.
Only GOD can love like that. And He has poured out His love for you and me in such abundance that it is always more than we can contain.
Read the stories of where Jesus fed the 5,000 and the 4,000 (in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 14 and 15) and in both instances they took up baskets full of leftovers.
That is how His love is. There is just so much of it, it is more than we can take in and so it spills over and it is only with THAT love that we can give and experience a FULLY FORMED LOVE.
OH! REALLY? Yes.
PBTG! (Praise Be To God)
P.S. Oh, there is one catch. The 4,000 and the 5,000? We, like them, must believe He can and will feed us and we have to be hungry enough to willingly receive what He has for us.
