Love. What is it?

I was standing outside the abortion clinic yesterday with a friend praying and watching women and their boyfriends/husbands leave. It was not counseling day, it was Abortion day.

Appointments with death.

And each of the women coming out, minutes before had condemned their child to death. They all came out pale and their faces showed no emotion. I was struggling with a righteous anger and pushing back tears I asked the Lord how to pray for these women. He said, “love them.”

I realized I had no capacity for true love in and of myself. I must ask the Lord for HIS love. His perfect love. I read out of 1 Corinthians 13 and was thoroughly convicted.

“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, Hope All Things, Endures All Things.                      Love Never Ends….”

One of the key fundamentals of why women have abortions is because they and their partners have a skewed understanding of what love is. They think love is a feeling and an act. They are “in love”, commit an “act of love” (or so they think), and realize that the result of being “in love” is inconvenient and so they have an abortion; assuming that afterwards the relationship will continue to flourish. But most post-abortion relationships fall to pieces because both parties realize that love is hard work and is not circumstantial. They fall “out of love”.

The philosopher, Aristotle, once said,

“We are what we regularly do. Excellence is not an act; but a habit.”

I would agree and apply his thought to love. Love is not a feeling or even an act…..its a daily habit of walking out and living what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. And its hard. Its beautiful, but its hard work. Painting the Sistine Chapel was hard, grueling work for Michaelangelo. He was laying on his back day in and day out; suffering the inconveniences of dripping paint, body aches, and ridicules from passersby. But the end result of his diligence and perseverance was a monumental achievement that has been marveled at for centuries.

True love is a beautiful, precious, indescribable thing. It is what we are called to pursue (1 Cor. 14:1) . Love for our God, first and foremost and then love for our neighbor (Matt. 22:37-39). We are able to love only because He first loved us and gave His Son for us and for our sins (1 John 4:10)

Everyone wants to be loved and everyone desires acceptance. In our culture, love is all about me, I, what I want….its selfish. True love is rooted in its sacrificial nature. God the Father did not spare his only Son, but freely gave him up….For me. For you. For the world. Love reaches out.

Because our culture defines love as only a feeling, everyone one is free to escape a relationship when it becomes difficult by merely saying that they are “out of love” and then move on. True love is not defined by circumstances be they easy or difficult. It is not defined by other peoples actions or their mistakes or their incapacity to love you back. It is consistent and it never ends. God himself IS love. He never changes with the seasons or when I fail to love Him as I should and He is eternal.

All this to say, What is love?

Love is: hard work, precious, beautiful, deep and everlasting, perseverant, not circumstantial, and is outward focused. I want to finish by explaining that love IS a feeling, but it just doesn’t stop there. Its a feeling, an emotion, that spurs one to actions and to a lifestyle of love. “twu wuv” 🙂 is indescribable. I just pray that my life would be an outward reflection of the True Love that I’ve found in Christ. Apart from Him, I cannot truly love. It’s still hard and there are many, many lessons that still need learning, but He is faithful and is daily renewing my mind. I’m thankful for these lessons of love and that Christ loves me unconditionally……what a humbling and yet satisfying thought…..

~K.Leigh~

In This is Love……

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God….

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins…

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us….

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” John 4:1-18

I walked down the stairs this morning to find two Anniversary cards on the table. That’s usually what Mom and Dad do; they take time to pick out a meaningful and heartfelt card and then write a sweet, loving note to the other and leave it on the dining room table. This year, however, there was a bit of a twist…..I walked down the stairs to find two cards……..exactly alike!!! All I could say between the giggles was, “I guess that means y’all were truly meant for each other!” And its true. Their marriage (the part I was around to observe) has been characterized by selflessness, laughter, joy, adventure, faithfulness, patience, and most importantly-love. Now, I don’t mean just a love for each other, but a true love and passion for Christ. That is where love begins. Without Christ’s work on the cross and God’s example, they would be incapable of love, true, selfless love for each other. Love is not a feeling, but an action…… daily dying to self to serve someone else. Daily putting someone else’s needs, wants, dreams ahead of your own.

That is what my parents daily strive to do. Because God abides in them, His love is perfected in and through them. They passionately seek Christ and as they are filled with his love, grace, and mercy they can’t help but pour it out on others.  Just as Paul assures us in Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, so it is with the committment of marriage. My parents made a vow before God and before men that nothing would separate them no matter how hard or difficult the road may be. And as Christians, they know their marriage  is a representation of Christ’s relationship to the church. A relationship founded upon grace freely given, faitfulness never failing, sacrifice willingly made, and a love never to be broken.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!! I love you both and am thankful for your love for each other, but most importantly, your love for your beautiful Saviour, Jesus Christ.

~K.Leigh~