LOVE – The Ultimate Test

LOVE - The Ultimate Test
by
February 11, 2025

Valentine’s Day is Friday, so we see lots of messages around love this week. In his book Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer says this: “Love is the acid test of spiritual formation. The single most important question is, ‘Are we becoming more loving?’ Not are we becoming more biblically educated. Or practicing more spiritual disciplines? Or more involved in church? Those are all good things, but not the most important thing.” Ultimately, the goal in life is to become more loving. Comer says, “Would the people who know you best say you are becoming more loving, joyful, and at peace? More patient and less frustrated. Kinder, gentler, softening with time, and pervaded by goodness? Faithful, especially in hard times, and self-controlled?” These are important questions for us to ask ourselves.

Human beings are complicated creatures. God has created us in his image and he has given us the capacity to love others, to care for others, to help others. But sometimes, it seems like love gets pushed aside and anger, resentment, selfishness, jealousy, bitterness, and hostility can take over. And this isn’t the way we want to be, it’s just the way that we sometimes get when certain things happen and when certain circumstances arise in life. All of us, no matter who we are, live with the ongoing tension of this struggle – between the way God wants us to be and the way that our sinful nature often causes us to be. We all wrestle with this because we’re all capable of both extremes.

Jesus says:

A new commandment that I give to you that you love one another…as I have loved you.” (John 13:34-35)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies…and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43-45)

“In everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Matthew 7:12) Imagine a world where people lived that way!

Then we find the timeless words of the Apostle Paul: “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends.”

In commenting on these words, Tony Jarvis gives us some interesting insight in his book With Love and Prayers:

“This love, to which the Apostle Paul is referring, has little or nothing to do with attraction, little or nothing to do with liking. You don’t fall into this kind of love. It’s not something that happens to you. This love is a willed concern that you have to initiate. It’s not even something that necessarily “feels good.” It’s often difficult and inconvenient, unpleasant and costly. It requires maturity, self-control, and toughness to overcome your natural instincts in order to love.” He goes on to say, “Love not only seeks to understand, but love assumes good, looks for good, seems if possible, to affirm, seeks to see others in the best possible light.”

Have you ever thought of fear as being the opposite of love? We always think of hate as being the opposite of love – not fear. But if you stop and think of some of the reasons why people don’t love – they’ve been hurt before; they don’t want to be hurt again; they don’t know the other person; they’re scared of being rejected and not receiving the same love in return. These all have to do with fear.

Love is not easy. Love is not simple. Love is a conscious choice that we make. Jesus knew this. Paul knew this. We should acknowledge this. Love requires commitment, hard work, and sacrifice. But love has been and always will be the force that holds everything together in this world. So may we never forget that. And may we always remember that God has put us here to love each other – even when it’s hard.

Paul says, “These three remain – faith, hope, and love…but the greatest of these is love.”

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