“Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting.” 1 Corinthians 13:7 CEV
“Recapture a child-like spirit that was once natural to you as a child.”
My thoughts today are about “love as a lifestyle.”
The Bible’s description of love is exactly the way you would want to live – “supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting.” That is the way you started out on this journey of life. The youngest of children is responsive to a mother’s mood, tone of voice, or facial expression. Children are also loyal to their parents, before even knowing the meaning of the word. Mom and Dad come first in their hearts – well at least before others, but maybe after their own little ego-centric selves. And who has more hope than a child, or trust that endures for a longer time? It is just how God made them, and that’s how God made you.
Our task as we grow older is to somehow recapture a child-like spirit that was once natural to you as a child. Didn’t Jesus say, “Anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it?” Luke 18:17 NIV. Can you picture your life as it could be, overflowing with love, simple, unaffected, and pure – “supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting?” How do you recover that innocence of heart and generosity of love?
There is a life-principle revealed in creation that describes God’s design, “plants that yield seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind.” Genesis 1:12 NKJV. In nature, an apple tree produces only apples, never oranges, and in those apples you will find only apple seeds, not seeds of a grapefruit! In nature, that is their nature. That simply means that in nature, God designed things “whose seed is in itself.” God’s answer is not in your need; it’s in your seed.
God placed in you the seed of everything that you were created to be and have. Here’s how that works. It’s simple; sow what you want to harvest. You have the God-given potential to become for others what you desire people to be for you. When you are consistently supportive – understanding, encouraging, forgiving, assisting – in return, you will find all the support you could ever wish to receive. When you are steadfastly loyal, even when you are pulled in another direction – in return, you will find others responding in loyalty toward you.
There is a catch; these good things do not result from separate, single occurrences when you find it convenient and personally profitable to do so. The promise in this principle is based upon a consistent lifestyle. It doesn’t work for you, if you merely do it when you want or to get what you need; but you will receive what you need, if you make love your lifestyle.
Love’s lifestyle is hopeful and trusting. Hope and trust are choices you make as a tangible expression of your loving lifestyle. Why would anyone prefer to choose being hopeless over hopeful? Do you feel better when you give up hope? The world is a pretty dark place to live, if you do not find reason for hope. It’s there if you will set aside your pain and disappointment and look for it. See Jeremiah 29:11 NLT. Both hope and trust begin with your relationship with God, and then are given lovingly to others. “Now this hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts . .” Romans 5:5 NKJV. See Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV.
My prayer for you today is: comprehend the greatness of God’s love and live it freely.