Learning to Practice Love

Christian Working Woman Transcript

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The definition of love is not easy to come by, because when we talk about love, it can have all kinds of different meanings. We say, "I love my dog, I love my job, I love my new shoes, I love my family, I love God." But all of those have different meanings and values to us.

Paul gives us a list of the evidences of love, and here they are: patient, kind, generous, humble, courteous, unselfish, good tempered, without guile. You'll notice that all of these relate to people and how we treat them. Loving God is not difficult to do when you have some understanding of what He is like. But loving people–ah, there's the rub.

Someone has said, "The greatest thing a person can do for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children." Every time you or I lack patience in our treatment of others, we lack love. Whenever we fail to be kind, even to strangers and people who are not kind to us, we have failed in the love department. When you lose your temper or behave in a sullen and moody way, you're not living in love. When you talk about yourself a lot and make yourself the center of attention, you're not treating others lovingly.

As I've explored the meaning of love according to 1 Corinthians 13, I've wanted to crawl under a table a few times. I miss the mark frequently. Oh, I may have a radio program and speak at lots of functions across the country. But if love doesn't consume me so that I demonstrate these qualities in my life consistently, all this time and effort I put into the ministry counts for NOTHING.

Just try to let that principle sink into your head and heart. What we do counts for a big ZERO if we don't practice love on a consistent basis. Well, how in the world do we learn to practice love? Let me encourage you to begin by reading 1 Corinthians 13 every day for at least the next 30 days. The more you read it and meditate on the overwhelming importance of love, the more you're going to want to love.

Then pray that chapter into your life each day. Pray about those specific characteristics of love and ask God to help you practice them. We need to practice love–to learn to love–and that takes a plan and time.

Here's my challenge to you. Read 1 Corinthians 13 every day for a month, and pray it into your life. I'm doing it again, and I know it is life changing!