CHOOSE: LOVE

Choose love and find joy!
Greeks had 6 words for love---3 of which were used in NT scripture.
Phileo love (deep friendship) John 12:25, Storge (like a family love) Romans 12:10, a combo of phileo & storge, and agape (unconditional, represented by God's love) John 3:16.
Hebrew definition for love in OT is 'ahabah (similar to GK Eros, romantic love) as depicted in Song of Solomon and Proverbs 5:18.

Today is a day to celebrate love. I celebrated with tea as I read cards & emails, and opened candy from loved ones.
I celebrate "morningtime" with tea. I love tea.
But God.....has shown me that "love" in scripture is not about inanimate objects.
In scripture, love is always the only kind of real love----relational.
So....I guess that excludes my cuppa. But.....I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY like my morning cuppa.
Happy Valentine's Day to all!!

"chari-TEA"

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13:13, KJV)

Chari-TEA! It's all about love. The Greek for charity is "agape" translated as unconditional love. Here in these verses from 1 Corinthians 13, one clearly gets the idea that love is NOT about self.

"Self" often acts for its own profit, and seeks its own with a "puffed up" ego. According to this chapter, charity does none of these. Longsuffering and kindness are factors of this love. Charity bears all things with hope and endurance.

Without love, mankind is nothing.

It's a covenant love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term necessarily extends to the love of one’s fellow man.

Dr. Constable dubs the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians as the supremacy of love. "Love is the most fundamental and prominent of these graces. The love in view is God's love, that He has placed in the believer by the indwelling Spirit, that should overflow to God and others." (p. 153)
An over flow of my morning tea opened my eyes to the reality of a cuppa chari-TEA. Overflowing of love is a good thing.

Disclaimer, I added a little tea to the saucer so that you could see it & get the idea.
Not the first time such a spill has taken place---but now it has meaning.

Sipping a cuppa chari-TEA allows love for God and others to spill over into life, just as the saucer for my morning brew caught the overflow and drips from my cup. That's what our charity needs to do......splash all over others and cover them with love.

L ……is for LOVE!

12/28/09 LOVE.....................

One of the hardest of all the attributes of God for me to wrap my brain around is love---unconditional love. I know of His sacrifice and I know scripture tells of the breadth and depth of His love but it’s still hard to comprehend, on a personal level, because I know me. I know that the one who writes this---a blog that sometimes inspire others---spent the day asking forgiveness for impure thoughts arising from impatience, unfulfilled expectations and anger. I wore myself out but I kept at it. Believe me, it was work! I thanked the Lord that He loved me, through the grace of His Son, but…….I didn’t “feel” that “love belief” in my core---it felt more like a mantra. I did repeat it over and over but did I believe it? I had to confess my unbelief. “ …I believe, Lord; help thou my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

The good news is that this unconditional love, which He offers, does not change whether I “feel” worthy of it or not. Even on days like today when my esteem is dragging, His love is constant.
No power on earth or heaven can separate us (even Me) from God's love. Not our (my) sin, not any authority, not any spiritual force. God's love is unshakable and can always be relied upon. That’s Romans 8:38-39 in a nutshell but………….the first 4 words say, “For I am convinced”-----

To convince myself of His love I plan to linger on this passage today----Romans 8:38-39

38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

His love is there whether I “feel” worthy of it or not.alpha