The Facets of Love

Think of some one-word definitions of love?

Now, these are probably all different things. They are related to each other, but do not mean the same thing. That could be confusing unless you understand that Love is only one thing, but like an intricately cut diamond its many facets are displayed in different ways. All of the words you thought of are an aspect of Love, but each one is wearing a different face.

Love is both practical and unpractical. On the practical side for example: how many marriages would be happier if the husband was a little kinder and the wife a little less touchy. Or, imagine what the presence of God would feel like in a church where EVERY member DECIDED to believe only the best of each other. And for the impractical, how often are we told to love our enemies and those who hurt us.

But we still haven't answered what exactly Love is. 1Corinthians 13:4-8 tells us what God says that Love is. It is also interesting to note that this is also the definition of what God is, because 1 John 4:8 tells us that God is Love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, 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, and always perseveres. Love never fails...” (NIV).

So, how are these faces of Love reflected in OUR lives? Here are some thoughts to help us answer that question.

Question 1: You are late to an important meeting. You finally dropped the kids off at school and are on the last mile of your journey when a very young man turns in front of you in an immaculate corvette and drives 15 miles below the speed limit. There is no other route and no way to pass. You were going to be slightly late, but now you will be very late. What are your thoughts?

Love is Patient and Kind:
Patience is perhaps one of the hardest of all aspects of love to achieve. Perhaps because it is one of the things that God leaves completely in our control. For those like me who struggle with letting God have total control of my life, it is interesting that God gives me Total Control of weather or not I will be patient. Like many others I want to reap all the benefits of a spiritual life, but don't want to do what it takes to develop spiritual maturity.

We all want drive-through breakthroughs. Just like fast food, which does not have the nutritional value of a healthy home cooked meal and causes thousands of people to suffer from poor health, so to is spiritual malnutrition caused by being in to big of a hurry to spend quality with God. All to often God gets only the fringes of our lives (Quickies) rather than the focus.

Love is not in a hurry. It always takes time to fellowship with God. A person whose life is marked by Love is also patient with others. They take time to listen to the elderly person who is lonely and wants to talk for example. The key word here is TAKE. They are not seeking time, nor do they have time on their hands, to show kindness to another person. Take is an aggressive word, not passive, implying that we should actively form time in our lives to be kind to others.

Without this facet of Love, Patience, Satan can keep our lives in turmoil and we will never truly have peace. Peace which Jesus gave us, ours for the TAKING.

Now think back to the question. What thoughts do you think God would want you to think?


Question 2: Imagine that you are in late middle age and have still not met a spouse. You have noimmediate family, but have a wonderful close single friend with whom you share all your joys and sorrows. The two of you do everything together, support each other, pray for each other, and are always there for each other. Then one day that friend meets someone and begins a new life with someone else. They effectively disappear from the intimacy of your life because they now have a spouse and a family of their own, and you find yourself alone. On top of this is the fact that to find a mate is the dream of your life too. What are your thoughts?

Love is not Envious or Jealous:
This is a common heartache for the Christian single and many times they ask themselves, “when is that going to happen to me?” Joyce Myers says that if we can acknowledge the jealously and ask God to remove it then we can learn to be truly happy for our brothers and sisters. She also reminds us to remind ourselves that if God can do things for others, He can also do them for us.

A lot of people harbor secret envies of the gifts of other Christians, but Joyce revealed that by envying the gifts of others she was blocked from enjoying the gift God placed in that person for her benefit. Then she stated something that was very profound to me. “God puts gifts in us for others, not for ourselves.” (Reduced to Love) God may give one person the gift to sing, but that person will never be as blessed as the people who hear them sing. God may give someone thegift of teaching or healing, but the person who will be truly blessed is the one who is healed or learns from the teaching.

Being jealous and envious of each other is a total waste of time because we all have gifts that God has specifically given each one of us. He has a unique plan for each one of us and the specific gifts He gives us are uniquely suited to that part of His plan.

The secret of acquiring this aspect of Love I think is to become so God-centered that we are no longer self-centered and therefore seek God's glory above our own.

Again consider the previous question. What thoughts do you think God would want you to focus on?


Question 3: Imagine that you have paid all your bills and the rent is paid, but you do not have a single dollar left to eat on until payday several weeks away. Very quietly someone you know slips you a $50.00 dollar bill at church. You don't really have the money to pay them back and they make it clear that the money is a gift and not a loan. Do you give the money back and not eat until payday, or do you accept the gift for what it is?

Love is not Proud or Boastful (Love is Humble):
Love and Pride do not mix! However, pride is a difficult problem because it hides in the deepestrecesses of our minds. Pride will not admit when it is present because it is too proud to do so, but at it's base, Pride lives for self. It is only Humility who can live for others. Pride hinders God from using you. It will make you disrespectful to others, stingy, and always want to be first in everything. Pride wants to be seen, noticed, pampered, made comfortable, and exalted. It is Humility that is satisfied with knowing that God is in control. As our example, Jesus, Exalted Prince and Son of the King of All Creation chose to humble Himself; to leave his crown and throne and spiritual body, to become a mortal Son of Man and live a life bound to the earth,separated from the glory of Heaven. Then accepted a demeaning and dishonorable death in obedience to His Father's will and pay the price for our salvation.

The Bible is also very clear on what it thinks about boasting. Proverbs 27:1-2 & James 4:14-16.Proverbs 27:1-2 “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.” (NIV)James 4:14-16 “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil,” (NIV).

A person who boasts is a person that suffers from an overabundance of Pride. A person who is walking in Love does not think more highly of themselves, simply because a person who is walking in Love is not thinking about themselves at all, but others. Love is ALWAYS looking for ways to be a blessing, for ways to serve God. You cannot be a servant if you are too proud to serve!

Reflect back on the last question. We know how God sees the giver, but how do you think He wants you to think about the gift?


Question 4: Imagine that you have just sat down to dinner, the first one you and your whole family have had in two weeks. You spent a good bit of time cooking the extensive selection of food and your mouth waters as you watch steam rise as you begin to serve. Then, suddenly, the phone rings and a polite but persistent telemarketer tries to sell you on the necessity of your owning a home security system. What is your response?

Love is Not Rude:
Most of us do not consider ourselves rude. Especially here in the South where people are supposed to be bread to have charm. But even velvet gloves can hide claws of steel. And the fact is that MANY Christians ARE rude. They don't leave tips because they feel that the service was inadequate or they do not understand the concept of generosity. To not tip a waitress is rude. To say spiteful things audibly under your breath while you wait for the cashier to have a stock person find a price for the bottle of Metamucil for the little old lady ahead of you in line who slowly fumbles for the exact change repeatedly, when you are late... is rude. To push ahead of anyone, for anything (baring an emergency) is rude. And God tells us that Love is Not Rude. So if we want to walk in Love neither can we be. But again return to the knowledge that if we are thinking ofothers and not ourselves, manners will be an ingrained part of who we are, for we will be seeking the benefit of others, not ourselves.

If you think of Question 4 again, what do you think God would have you do?


Question 5: Imagine that you are having an argument with someone, your spouse or your best friend and the argument becomes very heated and then turns into something a bit uglier when they say a very spiteful and untrue thing that hurts you badly. You are actually correct in the subject of the argument and all the just anger rises in you at the untrue and hurtful thing they have said. How do you respond?

Love is Not Self-Seeking:
In Matthew 24:12 Jesus disciples asked Him what would be a sign of His coming and the end of the age and He warns them that in the last days the love of the great body of people will grow cold. It is not hard to see this all around us now. People don't care about others the way they once did. Materialism has even crept into the church. People no longer have time to help others, to serve others, to pray for others because they are often too busy trying to get what they want for themselves. Haggai 1:2-11 gives us a good example of God's response to this kind of attitude.

Haggai 1:2-11 “This is what the LORD Almighty says: “These people say, 'The time has not yet come for the LORD's house to by built,'” Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: “It is a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink,but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, becauseof you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands,” (NIV).

Selfishness will not work. It stops up every avenue of blessing that would otherwise flow into your life.

To walk in Love will cost. It will require an effort, a massive heaving of ourselves out of our comfort zones. Not just in words, or even money, but in time and in ourselves. Mark 8:34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (NIV)

Our CROSS is not poverty and a life filled with disaster: our cross is to live unselfishly. As achallenge, if you are up to the effort that will be required, try to practice being TOTALLY unselfish,just for one day and you will then truly see where you stand in this aspect of Love.

How do you think God would want you to respond in the situation described in the last question?


Question 6: Remember back to the last really bad argument you had with your spouse or parent or friend? When things got really heated, did you or they bring out a list of the wrongs done by the other person in the past? Do you keep a “list” of the wrongs done to you by others?

Love Takes No Account Of The Evil Done To It:
Many times the best “record keepers” are people with a pride problem. They are people who are simply unable to forgive or forget an offense. In fact some of us have a tendency to keep it close and meditate on it regularly. This makes us full of poison and bitter, making our lives bitter, our attitudes bitter and our words and thoughts bitter. It sometimes makes us even madder when it's a brother or sister and we see God blessing them when we feel He should be punishing them.

But Love Forgives; it does not hold a grudge, it is not touchy, easily offended, fretful, or resentful.In fact it is only when we are thinking about ourselves that we hold onto wrongs done to us byothers. Joyce Myers says that she once read that something like 95% of the time when people hurt us they were not intending to do so. (In fact very few people spend their nights meditating on ways to hurt and offend us).

The Bible tells us what to do with an offense. Mark 11:25. It is important to forgive quickly because the quicker we forgive the easier it is to do. A weed that has deep roots is much harder to pull out than one that has just sprung up.

Mark 11:25 “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” (NIV)

It is interesting to me to note that without this facet of Love, we hurt ourselves far worse than anywrongdoer. To be unforgiving to others when they have wronged us has little effect on the person who probably does not even realize that they have hurt our feelings. But there is a profound effect on us when our hearts are hardened by the unforgiveness we hold inside.

What do you think God thinks of those who “keep records?”


Question 7: Imagine that you are called late in the night by a person of questionable beliefs who asks you to pray for someone that is experiencing some far-fetched description of illness or situation. Do you pray for that person after the caller hangs up? If you do, what do you pray?

Love Always Believes The Best Of Everyone:
This aspect of Love is what allows us to walk in the aspect of Love which takes not account of the evil done it. How can we be offended unless we do not believe the best of others. We can choose to believe the worst (that they just us on purpose) or we can choose to believe the best (that they did not mean something in the way we perceive it). If we look deep inside our motives we might find something like this: “What if I believe the best of that person and they really did hurt me on purpose. If that is true, I really don't want them to get away with it!”

Ultimately, it is ourselves that never has peace, and we spend our lives always expecting, even anticipating the wrongs that others will one day do to us. Not only are we unforgiving of others when they wrong us, we convict them before they every even have a chance to prove us right. Joyce says that if we sow mercy, we reap mercy, sow judgment and you will reap judgment. So start sowing forgiveness. You may need it someday. Another note of worth is for us to remember is that everyday when faced with potential hurt, we have already received more mercy than we can ever express in God's graceful forgiveness of our sins. Therefore we owe the others the same mercy that we have received through Christ's sacrifice.

So, how do you think God would want us to act and say?


Question 8: Imagine that you hear on the news tonight that a teenager in another state went to school today and killed 13 students and wounded many others. What would you think?

Love Does Not Rejoice At Injustice And Unrighteous:
Joyce Myers tells the story of when Dave, her husband, was a child and his family heard about a paperboy who had been robbed and everyone was horrified that such a thing could happen. As a sign of the times today, the thing that would come to most of our minds is robbed? Is that all? He's lucky he didn't get killed!! Even in the church today Christians have developed a hardened heart to all the tragedy around us because of the increasing amount of violence and the TV, which can bring it right into our homes. We must guard against becoming so accustomed to it that it no longer touches our feelings.

How many of the TV shows, movies, and books do we let into our lives that contain violence and ungodly actions and words? Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but isn't that what we do when we indulge in soap operas, horror movies, and psycho thrillers? By chasing after these things we are deliberately inviting evil into our homes and lives. But be aware that when you stand up for justice the world will not like it, and sometimes even week Christians will persecute you for it by despising you or simply belittling you. But the Bible promises that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled, (Matthew 5:6). If you keep walking in Love, hating injustice and unrighteousness, the favor of God will come upon your life in astounding ways justas the Beatitude says.

Now consider again how you will respond the next time you hear of a tragedy, even one far away and removed from your everyday life?


Question 9: Imagine that after prayer and seeking you decide to volunteer to teach one of the children's Sunday school classes because you see that there is a need and you feel called to serve that need. Then, after about 6 months of putting in a massive amount of effort and creativity, not one parent has said thank you. The pastor has not even acknowledged that youhave taken on this task by your own choice and it seems that none of the children have learned anything you've taught. What do you think you would do?

Love Never Fails:
Joyce, in her book “Reduced Me To Love”, gives the example of a woman who begins working in the church nursery, but after two weeks of not being thanked by even one woman, she quits. The point Joyce was trying to make is that if a person quits and gives up the task God has assigned them because no one is noticing what they are doing, then they are not serving God from a pure heart. Which of course ties back into our lessons on pride and self-centeredness.

In others it is very hard to keep showing love to someone who never seems to appreciate it or even respond to it. It is very hard to keep showing love to those individuals who take from us all we are willing to give, but never give anything back. The important thing to remember here is that WE are not responsible for how others act, only how WE act. Our reward does not come from man, but from God and He sees everything we do.

Matthew 6:3-4 “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (NIV)

It is also important for us as Christians to remember as we said at the beginning that God is Love and now God says that Love Never Fails. God will never fail us and never quits. And if we want to truly walk in Love like our Father, we must learn to preserver. In fact God says that we will be rewarded if we learn to walk in Love Galatians 6:9. But when we pursue a closer walk with God, who is Love, we cannot help but start to reflect the different facets of Love in our own lives.

Conclusion:
As I was writing this on the different aspects of Love, something was revealed to me at Reality Check (a youth group) meeting one night. All the aspects of Love point to an underlying theme. God is Love, and as we seek a closer relationship with Him we will walk stronger and stronger in all the faces of Love. Not because we struggle to overcome our shortcomings or determine to change our attitudes, but as the natural fruit of a closer walk with God. Like a tree, which does not struggle to bear its fruit, Love will be an outward manifestation of our simply seeking a closerwalk with God.

We are not to seek the fruit, but the relationship, and then the fruit will come.Joyce Myers writes in her book Reduced To Love that we want all our attitudes and actions to be reduced to Love. The Bible tells us that God is Love, so we are therefore seeking to be reduced to God. Reduced in our thoughts and actions until there is nothing left in us, but God.

Sentience Metaphors