What Does Love Look Like?
Here is my new life question that I'm asking everywhere I go:
What does love look like?
At the grocery store?
At home?
In my marriage?
At my work?
As I pass a homeless person on the streets?
When someone shares something vulnerable with me?
When someone is spiteful toward me?
When I'm tired?
When someone criticizes me?
When someone asks for help?
Each time I come back to the same question:
What does love look like here, right now?
Let us desire to be Jesus on earth, heaven's kingdom here and now, radically submitted to our Father, depending on the power of Holy Spirit to guide us and provide all we need every moment. An army of glory carriers consistently stepping out to talk to someone about Jesus even when we're scared, with the assurance that the result of our encounter is not on us but on Holy Spirit who draws all men to the Father. What would start shifting if we lived this way? When I asked God what love looks like while also asking Him to reveal Himself more, He told me to read and meditate on 1 Corinthians 13.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not demand 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. Love never ends...
1 Corinthians 13:4-7a, ESV
He reminded me that He is love. This passage is not only about who we as His followers are to look like but WHO HE IS. This revelation blew me away. My God is LOVE, true love.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."
1 John 4:7-8, ESV
The more He opens my eyes to see who He is and how full of love He is, I cry out, "More, God! I need more of Your love, more of You!" When I allow Him to pour His love into me, which He always does when I ask, I can more freely pour out and leak His love onto everyone I come around.
Recently I listened to a sermon by Heidi Baker about loving people and not the world, where she gave account after account of how simply loving others with Holy Spirit-driven acts led to the miraculous. Heidi said each time she saw someone in need, she would ask Holy Spirit, "what does love look like here?" She mentioned simple actions included holding someone about to die on the streets and giving them water, leading to a whole town valuing and remembering her and joy filling the woman's heart. She saw a lady who looked discouraged and lonely and held her and began speaking life over her by giving her a name which resulted in her blind eyes seeing and joy filling her heart! Listening to this, I saw how love never fails!
God is love, so if we want to show Him to others, love is the best way.
Without an agenda, without being acknowledged, just driven by the love of the Father. I hope if you are reading this, Holy Spirit is stirring a more profound longing for Him to fill you up with His amazing love to overflow and drip onto everyone around you.
