love relentlessly

And one of them, a lawyer, asked Jesus a question to test Him. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? And He said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 22:35-40.

This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible, perhaps because it involves a lawyer but more likely because it gets to the heart of the matter. You want to do what pleases God? Love Him. Love others. Simple! Uh, well perhaps not.

 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13.  

How we doing on this love thing? I don’t know about you, but each adjective is like a spiritual punch in the gut to me. I so often do not love as the Scriptures call me to love. As much as I like hearing this Scripture read at weddings, the repetitive nature of it has stolen much of its power and meaning. Anyone who hasn’t let Hollywood define love understands that it takes serious commitment to love. Love is a decision…not a feeling.  We may “fall into” love but we will never love consistently and persistently without pursuing love and the ultimate Giver of love. To love as we are called to love is to relentlessly pursue God and that is why I pray that relentless love is lived out at day|twelve. After all, loving as the Scriptures describe is not something natural to humans…it is a supernatural activity.  If God isn’t active in your life, you will not cannot love as the Scriptures call you to love. 

How does it look to love relentlessly? There is too much to say so that will have to wait….