LOVE OR PERISH

Without love, hopes perish
Without love, dreams & creativity perish.
Without love, families & churches perish.
Without love, friendships perish.
Without love, the intimacies of romance perish.
Without love, the desire to go on living can perish.

To love and to be loved is the bedrock of our existence.

However, love must also flex and adapt. Rigid love is not true love. It is disguised manipulation, a conditional time bomb that explores when frustrated. Genuine love willingly waits! It is not pushy or demanding. While it has its limits, its boundaries are all-embracing. It neither clutches nor clings. Real love is not short-sighted, selfish, or insensitive. It detects needs and does what is best for the other person without being told.

We need to look at the greatest dissertation ever written on the subject.

"No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything, Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end. "

- THE MESSAGE, Eugene Peterson

I believe there is still a heart shaped vacuum in the lives of so many people that only the three most wonderful, sincere words in the English language can fill: "I LOVE YOU"!

The challenge is to maintain and develop a spiritual lifestyle that is continually learning to rejoice in hope with each other, learning to pray instantly for each other, learning to bless each other, and learning to cry with each other when on of us hurt. In other words, loving each other in Christ!