Love Adjusts
We do not arrive here already conformed to God’s standard of love (See 1 Corinthians 13). In the process of time with the Father, He teaches us His way of love…His law of love.
AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH. – Mark 12:30 NASB
Yeah, this is not our default. This becomes our new normal. So, it takes work…and reworking…conditioning…and undoing bad conditioning. In short, we have to learn this way of love.
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. – 1 Cor. 13:7
God challenges us to judge ourselves righteously, not to self-assess through our feelings or experience. He confronts us with adjustment — the changing up of who we are in one form, to submit to God’s greater form of love.
Think about it. We do not automatically bear all, believe all, hope all and endure all. Not when we struggle with insecurity and battle with doubt. Not when we draw back, and count the cost of love in fear or through the lenses of a traumatic past.
No, dear ones, love adjusts. And for our weak, frail, human versions of affection and feeling to become raw, authentic Godly love…we adjust. We submit to the uncomfortable transitions and the major shifts of the creative process. In this we learn to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), to have unshakable faith that produces in all seasons (Psalm 1:3), and to run our joint races with patience (Hebrews 12:1).
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes. – Psalm 119:71
In the end it is a beauty to behold, but on the front end, we are fully alive to the forming and fashioning of God’s love in us. Where each party was asleep or unconscious at their first creation (See Genesis 2:7, 22), coming into God’s way of love requires all of us to take part in the series of experiences.
We adjust…
from short fuses to suffering long
from rudeness to kindness
from jealousy to security
from arrogance to humility
from relying on our “crazy” to not acting out
from selfishness to unselfishness
from being agitated to not being provoked
from throwing up faults to taking no inventory of wrongs suffered
from rejoicing in mess to loving truth
from leaving people wide open to covering (bearing all)
from fear to trust (believing all)
from sabotage and pessimism to optimism and believing the best (hoping all)
from punking out and quitting to persevering (enduring all)
DON’T YOU SEE NOW? WE DO NOT COME into this way automatically, but we learn this way. Look at this one on one, or in the family or local church setting. Love adjusts, and if we want to know love in purity and truth, then we must adjust to learn love God’s way.
Selah……. selah…. selah….
Blogs I Follow
The Bereans' Commentary with Shaunta D. Scroggins, Ed.D. 