Forward In Love - Thursday January 10

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, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8


There is a spontaneous nature to love. It is not premeditated. It bursts up in unexpected ways. There is nothing calculated in Paul’s description of love. Love is not a rule. We don’t list the requirements of the Bible on our to do list and say, I will do these to show my love today. But when God’s love is boiling over in our hearts, we live according to that list without even knowing it. Later we look back on those moments and are amazed at how little our focus was on keeping the requirements.
The springs of love are in God, not us. He is the source. It is a lost cause to look for God’s love in our own humanity. God’s love only fills us when it has been spread through our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we do not. The proof of our love for Him is the spontaneity and natural flow of our love. It is those times when the only explanation for our actions is simply because we love Him. The life of God overflows in us because the springs of love are found in our quiet hours with Jesus. Dig a well and allow that living water to flow through you until it becomes natural.