My one true goal in life is to love.
If I do nothing else, let me love.
Let everything I do be toward the end goal—love.
May love, God, be glorified.
According to scripture, three things will last forever—
Faith, hope, love—and the greatest of these is love.
(1 Corinthians 13:13)
I know I don’t do everything right.
I sometimes fail myself.
But this I know
With love, I am restored.
I can get up and go.
That’s grace, mercy, ultimately, forgiveness.
Another passage of scriptures (1 Peter 4:8-11) delves more into how to love and who to love—God, self, and one another. I find this passage knitted to the other.
Verse 8: Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins [wrongdoings].
I get it. Why? Because sometimes I do wrong toward myself, knowingly or unknowingly. Oops. I usually then have opened eyes what God was trying to protect me from, or lead me to, and I ask for forgiveness.
God freely forgives. Like He covered Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden because they felt ashamed, he covers me. God’s covering over me is love.
This profound love teaches me to cover myself with forgiveness, and heed the voice (direction, guidance, wisdom) of God.
Love is cyclical.
Love is the greatest strength to drive us to be kind, to withdrawal from complaining (v9).
Love compels us to be our organic, authentic selves, honoring what God has given to us, individually, and for the collective (v10). Our gifts are to make room for us and serve one another.
Love encourages us and beckons us to “only be strong and of good courage (Joshua 1:9)”. We need courage to use our gifts to build us up and for the greater good. When we don’t, someone suffers.
Someone may be asking, “Am I that important?” Yes, you are.
We are all knitted together. Created by Love, to be love.
How can we love? Verse 11 demonstrates three key ways:
- Speak intentionally as God speaks. Use your words to create love.
- Serve in small, great ways.
- Seek for God to be praised in all things.
In other words, seek for love to be elevated in your life, in all that you say and do. God will be glorified. Strength and power will abide. The love we share engenders faith and hope to increase—LOVE.
As we seek to sere love, our resolve to live will become strengthened. Our hearts become enlightened to the path we should go.
May we always choose the path to LOVE.
