Endurance and Patience part 5
It is, I would say, impossible to love someone without endurance and patience. Because love is not about being nice to someone when they are easy to be nice to. Anybody can do that. And love is a sacrifice. Giving everything you are and everything you have to someone no matter how they respond to it. Even though many times it seems like the more you love people, the less they love you. And I think--I'm not certain, because I can generally only speak for myself--but I think the reason love is often rejected (at least initially) is because it seems like its too good to be true. We don't believe it. We look at ourselves and we think, "What's going on here? Why would this person be nice to me? What's their real motive?" When the truth of the matter is: Love doesn't HAVE a motive, love IS the motive. Laying your life down--again, giving everything you are and everything you have--is the action that is motivated by love. And the only reason we can even THINK about doing that is because that's exactly what Jesus did for us. What Jesus did for us AND as us. He equipped and empowered us to do all of the deeds He did and greater deeds... by filling us up with His Spirit. With Himself. With His love. And watch this: "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners" (Romans 5:8 NLT). While we were still sinners. When we had nothing to offer God. When we were stumbling around in the dark doing the best we could with what we had (or what we thought we had, which was nothing, which basically allowed us to DO nothing), that's when God died for us. When we had nothing... that's when God gave us everything. And He didn't do it so that He could get anything out of it. He did it because He wanted US to get something out of it. He wanted us to get HIM out of it. He wanted us to get LOVE out of it. And kind of my point for today is that God patiently endured all the way from "In the beginning" to the cross. The cry of His heart was for us to be His people, and for Him to be our God. But it wasn't until He filled us to overflowing with His Spirit that we could KNOW that He is our God (our heavenly Father) and that we are His people (His only begotten Son in whom He is well pleased). He let humanity try to find their own way. For a long time. He let us make mistakes. And then, at the appointed time, He shined the light of the world on us (and in us) so that we might see a more excellent way. So that we might see that the thing we were looking for was inside of us all along. And then, when we were able to stop looking for love in all the wrong places, we were able to simply receive it and release it. Fill ourselves to overflowing with what God had already filled us with. We were able--because God patiently endured us--to begin to patiently endure each other. To love each other as Jesus loved (LOVES) us. Again: To receive it and release it. To let God's love flow into us, through us, out of us, and onto each other. The only reason we CAN love is because we ARE loved. You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. So when you're dealing with people... endure. Be patient. Don't let them dictate to you on their terms. The people who are the hardest to love need love the most. And we've got it... so we're the ones who can give it to them!