Christian Love! What is it, Really?!

Christian Love! What is it, Really?!

                So as christians, we read the bible and try to practice all it teaches. For some strange reason, we always fall short of the standards set therein, giving in to our own pleasures and wickedness. The funny thing is that this does not erode us from the ability to preach about the goodness specified in the Bible. The underlying message of the Bible is Love, Christ-like Love (1 Corinthians 13). So what is this Love that we can identify as Christian Love? I am a christian, a practicing one and i would like to say that the love specified, is easier spoken of than practiced or lived. This is a hardly spoken of but very true fact, even among christians. Is it even possible to attain this kind of Love and living? To ask us to be kind even when everything and everyone is unkind to us. To serve without any ill feeling. To have compassion for all of God's creation. To give out loans not expecting to get it back. To share our last meals and monies in the toughest of circumstances. In the world where I was born, the world we all live in, this kind of Love is not possible to find, at least not in the way we hope to find it.

                So here is what I know Christian Love to be, It is a way of Life that sees good at all times regardless of the obvious facts. It is totally based on the Faith preached by the Bible. By the way, Faith is Belief in The One who is able to do all things: God (Father, Son and The Holy Spirit). To have Christian Love is to be honest, caring, humble, kind, approachable, teachable and basically to walk and work in the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5: 22) and to keep growing daily until we learn to Love people as God does (2 Peter 1: 2 - 9). This basically means that to have this Love, the Spirit of God must be in control of our every impulses. I once heard a man say that if someone pushes you to anger, the anger was always in you and just needed time to show itself. In the same way, Jealousy, Selfishness, Cruelty and any other attribute that is the opposite of this Christian Love's expression. If this is true, then is it even possible to walk in this Spirit that ensures all that comes out of us is Love? The apostles believed it, and it was them who where first identified as Christians: They who walked with Christ. Of course they did have issues that arise out of human living as well but it was sorted out differently than we do today (Acts 6: 1 - 7). So what did they do differently? They surrendered their will, they let go and they let God guide their hearts, motives, workings and basically let God lead them home.

                As well as there are issues about temperaments and behavioural patterns, there is only also, One Christian way, This is to Love and it cuts across temperament, age, sex, race, account balance, job description, goals and dreams. Infact, in this love, the only thing we are conscious of is, what would God have me do. So I encourage you to see the Truth as it is, To love is not to understand it or define it, It is much more of a Surrender. Leaving what you think is Right and doing what God says is and this comes through His Spirit which guides you in what to do where, when and how. So when next you are faced with a tough decision, think about God. Think about what you are going through and remember the things you first learnt about Christianity and Love, not the things you picked up on human experience. Remember, The truth is always simpler than the circumstance. May God Bless you and grant you Peace.