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For all the people of God, love is the touchstone of our
faith, the way to know if what we believe is with Him, or with something
else; if we are walking with Him, or with something else; if the one who
speaks is speaking for Him, or for something else; if we are keeping Him in
our hearts, or something else.
Love does not speak with hate or fear or derision, but
with a fullness of existence. And that love is ridiculed
and trampled, and can only be counterfeited but never achieved, by
that which is opposed to His creation.
When you are in doubt or confusion about what is true and
what is false, look for the light of love. And if it is not there, if it is
wrapped in the hardness of pride disguised as ritual observance and
pharisaical pride, then you will know what it truly is. It is a
sin against the spirit.
Love is not easy; it is not a natural state. It seems weak
and foolish, and even despicable to the fallen and the world.
It is a disposition of the mind and the heart, and an act
of acceptance through the will. It is a shield against temptation. It is
a habit of acting and looking at things, that can become easier and more
comfortable as we carry that yoke or restraint on our weaker nature and our
harsher emotions. Over time that yoke becomes lighter, and a light to steady
us in life's darker moments. But it is rarely easy or natural. We
must remember we are sinners, but reaching out to the eternal, and
thereby attempting great things, if but clumsily and with falls.
This is how the people of God may guide themselves and
their own actions along the way. If there is no love evident in the words and
the heart, then the words and the actions are not of God, but of something
else.
Love is not what we do, but how we do what we do. Love is
found in the most ordinary things, not in grand gestures and elaborate
mannerisms, but in the small daily acts of kindness and fellowship, done
lovingly and with care, for His sake. It is how we carry our cross,
not in front of a cheering crowd, but in the quiet moments, and the little
things, while walking with Him.
We do not need to hate and reject the world, and despise
and subdue His creation. They are a gift from God, to which we bring our own
good use and order in His name. And if we are wise, with our reverent
wonder. We can work with His gifts lovingly, and not abuse them
from excess and greed.
It is not the world that is a source of evil, but the
willfulness of our hearts, made hard with pride. Only love is creative
and productive.
God is the essence of all existence, which is His
love. The pity then, is not to love.
"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels,
but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have
prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I
have all faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may
boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or
boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not
irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in
the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to
an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an
end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the
fullness comes, the partial will come to an end.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a
child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to
childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face
to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been
fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the
greatest of these is love."
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