Love is the Substance of Life!
“Love is the Substance of Life!”
Love is kindly given… gentle. Its thoughts are not of itself. Will I be loved? Its thoughts are for the one loved. This love requires nothing added. For pure love needs no approval. It loves because it loves.
Love sustains itself. It lives, moves and acts on its own. It is the very thing God approves always.
Love has no need to be charmed, enticed, lured or seduced. Lust may require these; but never love. True love is truth, nothing else needed.
Like a deep current, it runs silent. It makes no noise. You won’t hear it coming. Yet it’s there–loving.
Like a hidden cave, love is secret. It doesn’t broadcast what it’s doing. If you’re not careful you won’t even know when love is around.
Love takes on…
…the joy and laughter, and also the pain of others, their loss, their brokenness and disappointments. It endears those who are afraid. Love is there in the midst of another’s shame, stupidity and ignorance. It stays when all else leaves. It remains when all seems lost. Love endures when others are rude, ungrateful and cold. It abides through abuse and pride, criticism and hurtful ways. It stays through the disdain and ridicule, even the harshest of persecution and injustice. Like a fighter, love takes on its opponents with stamina. It takes them on without abandoning what it is, without changing into what it is not, without losing itself. True love stays the same. It never changes.
Yet love can weep and hurt. It feels pain, very badly. It cries… deeply. It bears sorrow and disappointment, sadness, even anger. Anger in love is the sharpest contrast between anger in hate. Discipline in love is love. Correction… punishment… justice… all in love are love’s doings. Truth, spoken in love, though it be as hard as a rod of iron, is love.
Love sees. It listens, thinks, and is wise. Love is perfect for every occasion. Nothing goes well without it. Everything is enriched by it.
Love is faceless, yet is plainly seen in the faces of others. It’s formless, yet see how visible it is throughout all of creation. It has no accurate name to describe its many facets. Yet call out unto love from your heart of hearts and it will find its way to you.
Listen… carefully. Love has no sound. Listen again; and it can be heard in the chirping of birds, the melody of music and the soft wind and rain.
Love has no skin, but can be tenderly felt.
Love is personal. It cares. It truly cares.
To the sick, love heals. To the poor it brings strength. Love carefully mends, restores and fixes what’s broken. It takes its time to do it good and to do it right. Love is perfect!
Wherever it goes love leaves love. And as much as it leaves, as much as it gives, it is never empty.
No matter how much stress or pressure, love endures. It endures mistreatment and wrong-doing. It rises to forgive so it can move forward again in love. It weighs not itself down with ought, envy or strife. That it cannot live with.
Though love is often soft and kind, it can also be very firm and direct. It’s a devoted teacher and an honest guide.
Love can rise out of the hidden depths of one’s soul and erupt like a volcano! It can also hover gently and serene as the dew in the morning.
All things divine are designed and purposed in love, and sustained and fulfilled by it. Love is the substance of life.
Love upholds what it loves, and abhors the despoiler of love. Love’s hatred is perfect, not impure. It hates the destroyer of what love loves. Love disdains injustice. It hates lying… stealing… murder… bearing false witness… devising discord among others.
Love is a warm cloak and a covering. It protects. It shields and honors what it loves. It values that which values God. For God is love, and the sole source of true love.
Love is not a prisoner. It cannot be shackled or controlled, regulated, bought or sold. Love is its own, and is free.
Love freely moves as it wills, where it wills, unto whom it wills. Nothing has fuller freedom or higher dominion than love. Love is superior to all things. No ruler rules over it. No ordinances, habits, ways or traditions of men can govern it. Nothing is master over love. For God is love.
His love is freedom; and it sets others free. It forces itself on no one. Saying yes to love lets love become the just and gentle master and sustainer of the soul. When love is allowed to work it never fails.
Love is eternal. Yet it can be born. It can live. It can grow. It can also die; and yet be born again. Love is eternal.
When looking for love (not looking for someone to love you but looking for how you can love) you will find it. Love looks longingly for ways to show love. It seeks the good of others.
God’s love causes one to grow more and more in love with Him and in the love and understanding of others. Such love draws the heart to commune with Him in prayer, over and over and over again. It’s love that comes to God Who is Love. It’s that same faithful love that fashions that ardent commitment to the LORD and to those who are loved.
That love…
…is the very substance of life.
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