“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth, not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
When I was younger and I got into arguments with my siblings that we could not seem to resolve on our own, my father always made us read 1 Corinthians 13 in its entirety. Not only did he have us read it, but he had us read it aloud to really process and comprehend its meaning. It was so that we, as siblings and individuals who are bonded by the blood of our parents running through our veins and the blood of Jesus Christ, could not only know what God’s love is and how to recognize it but how, even in our youth, we could embody it.
However, I must confess that though I ascribed to embody love for as long as I can remember, it was not until I had my heart broken that I began to understand it in its entirety and that the words I’d read all my life garnered a greater meaning. It took loving someone without reciprocity for me to realize the power of love because as far as I was concerned, to love and not be loved back was a failure and it didn’t count in my eyes. However, my thinking was wrong and it was my father’s wisdom that helped me realize it. I’m sure we’ve all experienced heartbreak, and maybe you haven’t, but after getting hurt, it’s easy to think that it was for naught and that somehow you lost something or gave someone something they simply didn’t deserve, which leads to you regretting giving everything when you received nothing in return, especially the love you gave.
Before I say more, I’ll say this, if you’ve ever felt that way or even feel like that now, that you were robbed of something by loving someone who didn’t love you back in a romantic or platonic capacity, I say to you what my father told me: imagine how God feels.
The Creator of the universe and everything in it created us in love, incarnated His Son in human form, and then killed that Son for our salvation, not to mention all He does for all of us in our individual lives on a daily basis. And yet, admission into the Kingdom of God is optional. It is entirely up to us to decide with the free will He gave us if we want to serve and love Him, nevertheless, He loves us, He saved us and as exemplified by the Prodigal Son, He waits for us with joy and open arms. If the Creator of the universe cannot make us love Him in spite of all He does for us, how can we, mere mortals and sinners saved by Grace, expect something that God Himself doesn’t receive from His children?
While we cannot make anyone love us, it does not mean to love and to serve others is not worth it. Quite the opposite. As I said, the capacity to love makes us like God and there is no greater accomplishment, in my opinion, than to be more like God. In fact, isn’t that the goal? In John 15:13, Jesus says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Notice, it does not say there is no greater love than a man laying down his life for his friends so long as they are willing to do the same. From this scripture and the life and death of Jesus, we see, if we are looking closely, that love is not conditional or predicated on how others act and treat us, but how we love and our capacity to do so is predicated on how much of the Spirit we allow to abide in us. Intrinsic to true love is sacrifice and service, and we may never ever have to lay down our lives as Christ did, but the opportunity to serve others, to extend grace to others, to recognize someone in need, and to put someone else before ourselves is never anything to dread but to seize and be grateful that God is enabling you to be a vessel and that you can be in a position to exemplify love and help someone else.
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” – Mark 10:45
Jesus Himself is the greatest exemplar of love that we will ever know as His very life was dedicated to serving the world that it would be liberated, that the world would know a different and transformational way of life, that the world would know true love and He sacrificed His very life for our freedom, redemption, and salvation.
We constantly look for reciprocity, doing things in pursuit of a thank you, of an I love you too, or of any indication from others that we’ve done well. But true love is giving of oneself, not with any expectation but with a heart for God. It is in the very pursuit of sacrifice and service, that we are not only embodying love and thus Christ Himself, but we are also honoring God our Father.
There are honestly a million scriptures about what love is, how love is, etc. Love is patient, love is kind, love is sacrifice, love is service, love is God, love is Jesus Christ and to add my own characteristic, love is a superpower and if you have a capacity to love, then rejoice in that strength and in that ability that makes you like the Creator of all things. And if for some strange reason, you question the love that has gone unreciprocated or dismissed or for some reason, recognized, remember the ability to love is rare, and more importantly, that you will always find love, comfort, peace, and joy in God and love is not defined by what you receive in return, but by what we are willing to give.
