I Corinthians 13:8
Love never fails; …
Love never fails– Love never runs out, Love is never exhausted, Love is never used up, and you can never come to the end of loves supply. For Christ is love and HE never fails. If your loves fails, you are trying to manufacture a love that is not of God. God’s love is not a limited resource. You never have to give others a rain check, because His love is always in stock if we will draw from His endless inventory. If love is lacking you are looking for it in the wrong place.
How do we draw from the endless inventory of God’s love?
We look to the reservoir of God’s love; not at what is lacking in us or the person we are dealing with. We pour out our lives before Christ, that HE may fill us with His love. We must be willing to be wasted. We must being willing to lose, to not get what we think we deserve, to not get a fair shake, to be rejected, to not have the upper hand. We must be willing to serve, to yield, to submit, to not get our way. And there is only ONE WAY- We must submit continuously to the Love of Christ- THE WAY and trust Him with our lives in every situation. He is our hope, not others. We can trust Him with our lives when we can’t trust others.
We have a tendency to explain away the passages we don’t like (and I don’t like the following passage) and that seem hard, but it is impossible to explain away the weight and reality of what Jesus says love looks like in practical out workings in the following passage-
“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
“If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.
“Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
“Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’
“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
“If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:39-48
Re-read the above passage, meditate on it (think about it, feel the weight of it) and record what the Lord is saying to you through it-
I don’t know about you, but there is NOTHING about this passage that makes earthly sense or that is pleasing to my flesh. I have RIGHTS and I demand that others treat me the way that I WANT TO BE TREATED. That is what I think and that is how I live. But the truth is I surrendered my rights to my Savior and Lord when I received Him as my King. I have entered a heavenly kingdom and its rules are the exact opposite of the worlds and often opposite of what we have learned in AMERICAN Christianity. God’s love is foolish, radical, extreme and absurd. But it is the LOVE of GOD alone that will transform this world if we are willing to trust Him with our whole life even when we don’t want to.
Are you willing to give a love that is not of this world? Are you willing to give the never failing love of Christ even in the most absurd situations to the most ridiculous people? I guarantee you we will all have opportunities this week. What will we do with them?