| ON UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Agape love is . . . profound concern for the well-being of another, without any desire to control that other, to be thanked by that other, or to enjoy the process.
--MADELEINE L’ENGLE (1918– )
Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life.
--THOMAS MERTON (1915–1968)
Erotic and philia love are emotional. Christian love [agape] is an attitude, not feeling.
--JOSEPH FLETCHER
Love is something so divine,
Description would but make it less;
’Tis what I feel, but can’t define,
’Tis what I know, but can’t express.
--BEILBY PORTEUS (1731–1808)
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ON UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
As for theme, the most obvious spiritual parallel is unconditional love. Like Henry, God loves us with a new and fresh energy every day. He loves to spend time with us, even when we forget who he is and what he has done for us. He is in the business of making our lives richer regardless of our inadequacies or shortcomings.
LOVE Unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for the well-being of another. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul described “love” as a “more excellent way.” The New Testament maintains this kind of love throughout.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (Message Bible)
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
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