Love Is Hard

 

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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. (1 John 4:7-12 ESV).

 

Yesterday I ended the devotional with an encouragement to find ways in which we may express the love of God to others. I cannot deny that loving others is often hard. However, the Scripture is very clear in showing us this is the path God desires for us. It should not be a surprise when the Apostle Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit that love is the first to be listed (cf. Galatians 5:22-23). And, the spiritual qualities that follow are further elaborations on the primary fruit of love. It’s no wonder that 1 Corinthians 13, which details the attributes of love, has much in common with the description of the fruit of the Spirit. When we read there that love is patient, kind, and rejoices with the truth (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:4, 6) we see how the virtues of patience, kindness, and joy are expressions of love in action.

 

Perhaps the most difficult part of loving others is how often we define love outside of the example of Jesus and the instruction of the Scripture. It is no surprise to any of us who have lived even the shortest of adult life that we often see people loving the wrong things for the wrong reasons. Even our love for good things can often go wrong. Some of that is a language problem. When I say that I love to work in my woodshop, that insinuates that I would be willing to give anything for the time and resources to be in the shop most of the time. Yet, when I add up the time spent in the shop it is far short of a majority. Perhaps that’s merely a vocabulary problem. The truth of real love is to be found in the kind of relationships I have.

 

This points to the truth I have written on several occasions. It is the difference between doing the things that “get to do” or those that I’ve “got to do.” This is where it gets hard. Loving others, especially those with whom I disagree, is enormously hard. Yet, it is the way of Jesus.