Love Never Fails

I just saw an email I had received from the Ludys containing a link to a blog post Eric wrote remembering his proposal to his wife Leslie in 1994. Their whole love story is incredibly sweet and an amazing testimony of what God does when we surrender every part of our life to Him. He is especially interested in our love life because God is the author of romance; the creator of the sacred institute of marriage. What He ordains and designs is lovely, good and something to celebrate!

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about love on Valentine’s Day. You can read it and what I think about the holiday here. I have to admit that I wasn’t in the best of moods at that point in time, nor was I feeling particularly excited about love in general. While my circumstances have not changed much since that post, I’d like to think that my attitude has. So I’ll give another shot at a Valentine’s Day post on love. You can thank Eric Ludy for the inspiration. Read about Eric’s proposal to Leslie on his blog, Bravehearted Christian.

“Love is not proud

Love does not boast

Love after all

Matters the most

Love does not run

Love does not hide

Love does not keep locked inside

Love is the river that flows through

Love never fails you

Love will sustain

Love will provide

Love will not cease

At the end of time

Love will protect

Love always hopes

Love still believes

When you don’t

Love is the arms that are holding you

Love never fails you

Love is right here

Love is alive

Love is the way

The truth the life

Love never fails you”

Written by Chad Robert Cates

These words come from one of my favorite songs sung by Brandon Heath called “Love never Fails.” It’s a great song about the love of God from 1 Corinthians 13. Another song directly from the love chapter that I learned recently is called “Though I Speak” by Matt and Josie Minikus. The second verse is my favorite.

“Love is patient knows no ending. Never gloats when others sin. Love is never glad to see injustice always wants the truth to win. There’s no end to loves endurance there’s no test it cannot face. Lord you spent your life in serving others. What this means I would be taught.”

This song points out that the deep power of God’s true, agape love is not something we come up with on our own. It’s not in our sinful, human nature to love like that. It must be taught by the spirit of Christ and learned by us.

In my previous post on love I talked about sacrifice, repentance and forgiveness. This time I’d like to take verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 13 and expound on it a bit.

“Beareth all things, believeth all

things, hopeth all things,

endureth all things.”

Bears all things

Verse 4 of that chapter tells us that love is not easily provoked. In other words, it would have to take a lot to send it over the edge. In fact, if it truly does bear everything, it won’t break or crack at all. Love is steady, calm and collected. Remember that next time you’re about to come unglued at someone who has made you mad. Love does NOT reply in biting, words that sting and hurt. True love will bear all things patiently and will take wrong without having to defend a position or point because it does not care for its own skin.

Believes all things

Everyone is innocent unless proven to be guilty. In other words, always believe the best about anyone and everyone. No prejudging or negative, misconceived predictions or assumumptions. Unless you KNOW for sure that the negative is true. And even then as Christians and children of our loving God, we are supposed to love our enemies and those who have done wrong and don’t “deserve” our love. Because we didn’t deserve the love of God either. We all were once dirty sinners now saved and made clean by the blood of Jesus Christ. So be patient with those that are hard to deal with, and quick to believe in the positive rather than the negative.

Hopes all things

I have written whole posts on hope before. It’s one of my favorite topics, because hope is what keeps us going when all hell is breaking loose. Even in the most fiery trial hope is always there. God’s love creates hope, because it’s settled and grounded in more than tangible evidence. Love hopes at all times, for it is secure in the knowledge that God is in control and He will prevail no matter what. God’s love will always win. We can place our hope in that. Hebrews 6:18 & 19 have been on my mind recently, for they speak of the hope found only in the refuge of our Heavenly Father.

we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:

Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast

Endures all things

“Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen.”

For the enduring one I had to include this excerpt from a quote on love by Elisabeth Elliot. Love being enduring is often a tough concept to grasp. You may be saying, “wait a minute! I experienced pain and heartache and a broken relationship. Love didn’t last forever for me.” I feel your pain, and you’re right – love doesn’t always endure. At least, not the love of our human nature. What we need to realize is the agape love of God is THE ONLY love that will never end. The warm emotions and butterflies we experience in a romantic relationship, however, simply do not last. While they may seem so strong and wonderful at the time, they are superficial. These feelings are special and not without their place in a relationship, but they don’t sustain or protect or build. They do not last; will not withstand the cold, battering winds of hardship and struggle. They will not pass through the testing and proving of true love. It’s sad how many couples, especially those that have already been married, give up and walk away from eachother because it’s too hard or too much work to stay together. There are a whole plethora of reasons for divorce, but the main one we hear, is that they just don’t feel ” in love” anymore. Their relationship became based on feelings and emotions that faded away with neglect. It could not endure because the right love wasn’t there to make it last.

On this day that the world is celebrating the mushy gushy side of love, we need to understand what love really means. The work, the pain and sweat of it; the nitty, gritty get down-to-work side of love that calls for men and women to set aside their wants, needs and their own thinking to lay down their life for another. It’s service, and caring, and doing for others what we would like done for us.

Because love is action.

And it never gives up and never fails. Even when the sunshine is gone and the skies have turned gray.

I encourage you to rest in God’s love today, knowing that His love will last forever even when others have failed you. Walk forward in faith, trusting Him to carry you through in His mercy and grace.

“For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD.” Psalm 117:2