Love is the Greatest
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NLT) – “4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Many of those familiar with the Bible have likely read the verses above. We should not allow familiarity to discount or allow us to make less importance of the truth within these verses. Living with love as a priority allows us to deeply touch the lives of others as well as enrich our lives through love’s power and effect.
Love can easily be confused with the things we want. Allowing the things we desire to be stronger than love causes ourselves to suffer as a result. It’s easy to think that we love attention, love our cars, love money, or love getting good feedback. Those things are not love, but rather things we may grow dependent on.
As mentioned in the Bible verses, love is selfless, patient and not irritable when it doesn’t get it’s way. When we think of love as selfless and patient, we’re able to boil down a more precise understanding of what love is. Love is not based on what we can get for ourselves, it allows us to be a servant to God and therefore help other people. As a result, our lives become more filled with happiness when we enrich the lives of others and are honoring God.
It isn’t easy to love when we feel wronged or hurt. However, God allows love to become more ingrained in our nature when we grow closer to Him. We often don’t love people because it’s the first response that we feel in every situation. Many times, we may want to hurt people who hurt us. Understanding how much God loves us, even when we mess up, allows us to have a better perspective; making it easier for us to spread that love into the lives of others.
A life filled with love as a life lived more fully. We cannot excel and we often remain stuck if we don’t allow for forgiveness and love to lead our lives. God is love and we have life because of Him. Difficulties come our way but they serve to make us stronger people by allowing us to develop. Thinking positively about challenges and using them for growth will help keep us in a healthy and positive state of mind.
For related material on positivity, please check out: A Positive Mind.
