Learning to Love

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

⁵It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13)

I’m not so great at love. I do love, and deeply, but really, I am still learning to love. What Paul is writing is that it doesn’t matter if we are the greatest, the best, the premier, or the champion. If we do not love, we are nothing. Love is our legacy, and our testimony. Love is how others know we are saved by Jesus.

One day, when we are all in heaven, we won’t need prophecies, or translators, or even schools or classes to gain knowledge because we will truly see and know as we never have before. We will be complete, therefore we won’t need all the above listed things because they are just support mechanisms to help us along while we are still incomplete. Knowing Christ, means loving Christ, and that means our love must grow and mature. Mature love recognizes that the person and the relationship are the most important. Pride and Ego and all that stuff doesn’t really matter when viewed with an eternal love. We can’t always love like we are children. Immature believers love for the blessing, for the good. Mature believers love even during the bad, the hard, and the broken. Our love needs to grow. My love needs to grow.

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world…” It doesn’t say that He so loved the good parts, the good ones, the just ones, the ones really trying, the rich, the poor, the pastors, the missionaries, the puppies and ponies and baby otters. God so loved the world, all of it. The snakes, the spiders, the sinners AND saints, the middle class, the crooks, the politicians, the cancer, the bad hair days, the fungus, the ones who are broken, the ones pulled apart, the dying, the living, the world. He made it, He loves it, and He is redeeming it through Christ’s death and resurrection. This is mature love: loving what God has made because God made it, and not because it benefits us. This is why we love our enemies. Because God made our enemies. Mature love loves God and everything God has created and blessed regardless of how the devil has tainted and twisted it.

Do I love like God does? No. I’m still learning to love the mess and the chaos and the brokenness that comes from living in a world that is still in the process of redemption. I’m not always patients with my husband or son, I’m not always kind or gentle. I am not always joyful or self-controlled. I am still learning to love God and others because I am still a work in progress. I am still learning to love myself because I am still learning about myself. God is still showing me how He created me, and that I am a good creation. In the midst of my sinfulness I am learning that God is good because God is love, and I too can be love to others.

Learning to Live

The tagline for this blog is “learning to live, love, trust.” Perhaps it seems like a strange thing to say, especially for a seminary graduate. I confess, I used to think that when I graduated from seminary I would have it all figured out. I thought I would know the answers, be able to defend my faith with conviction and truth, and, at the very least, be able to pray great and moving prayers when asked to do so by relatives at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.

That’s not what I came away with though. Oh, I know some answers, can defend my faith decently, and am not as nervous about praying in front of others. But I came away with a desire to learn and to share, and to help others relate to the Bible – specifically the Old Testament. I am still learning to live as one who is called by God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and loved unconditionally by Him. I am still learning to love myself as I was created, and to love others as God desires me to, and, above all, to love God passionately. I am still learning to trust God and His goodness, to trust that He is in control and can do more than I ever dare imagine and hope for, and to trust others with my heart and my soul. Its hard work being vulnerable.

In this post, I am going to just address the first of these three things: learning to live. John 10:7-10 says:

Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus came so that we could live, but not as the world lives. Sometimes it’s so hard to figure out where the sacred ends and the secular begins and vice versa because the two are so mixed and intertwined. When Jesus came, he turned everything upside down and told us we had it all wrong. We had been living all wrong. Jesus said in Matthew 10:39, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” Say what?

Back to John 10. Jesus is telling Pharisees that there is only one way to live and love, and anything else is counterfeit. Thieves and Robbers say there is more, or that there is a different path: “Do this, pursue that. It will fill you and make you whole. If you follow these instructions, these 5, 10, 15 steps, you will be safe and secure. You can do it. You can make yourself so strong you will not be touched.” Sound familiar? We are all searching for meaning and purpose. We all want to leave a legacy behind so our name will not be forgotten, so we will be known forever. But known by who? Other mortals who will just die?

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:3, “But whoever loves God is known by God.” And also in Galatians 4:9, “but now you know God—or rather are known by God…” We strive after what we already have. It’s hard to hold onto it because it’s not a certificate on the wall that reminds us of something we have like a college education. It is a vibrant and growing relationship that requires faith and the daily decision to choose Jesus, listen to his voice, and follow Him regardless of where it leads us. And that can be a scary thing, especially when we are comfortable and have “made it” according to the world’s standards.

Learning to live means learning to place my identity in Christ and his work, and not my own. Learning to live means trusting that Jesus’ way is better because his strength and power are what sustains me every day. Learning to live means turning away from worldly titles, possessions, and patterns and believing that heaven will be better because that’s where Christ is and only in him am I complete, perfect, and can really live.