I Corinthians 13:7 KJV
Love “endures all things.” The word “endures” is a military term that means to hold a position at all costs, even unto death, whatever it takes. The battle may be lost but the soldier keeps on fighting to the very end. The word pictures an army surrounded by superior forces, being attacked and slowly overwhelmed on every side. One by one your comrades fall at your side. Through the din of battle comes one final command: “Stand your ground, men. And if necessary, die well.” So love holds fast to people it loves. It perseveres. It never gives up on anyone. Love won’t stop loving, even in the face of rejection.
[**Deep sigh** I really needed that. I know exactly what it means to endure through all things with those that I love. It has often been the case when those that I love leave or give up on me. I learned from my grandmother that love endures ALL things. I never saw her give up on those that she loved *especially* when they turned their backs on her. So even in the face of rejection, I love. I can’t even tell you that this comes easy for me, but it’s the cross that I bear, and it is nothing compared to the sufferings of Christ.]
With this phrase verse 7 comes to a logical climax. First, love covers the sins of the one it loves. Second, love believes the best as long as that is possible. Third, love hopes when it cannot believe. Fourth, love endures when even hope is gone.
Love does not commit suicide. It doesn’t give up and walk away. Years ago I knew a woman whose husband left her for another woman. At one point the couple entered marriage counseling, and for a brief moment there seemed to be hope. Then he walked out of counseling and went back to the other woman. The situation dragged on for months without resolution. Divorce proceedings began and continued with much wrangling over anything related to child custody.
One day I saw the woman and she told me an unusual story. “I asked him for my wedding ring,” she said. “Why would you do a thing like that?” I wondered. “When he moved out, I gave him my wedding ring as a sign that he had broken his wedding vows. But recently I began to think about what that ring symbolized. I realized that even though he has been unfaithful, we are still married. When I asked for the ring back, he was surprised. He was even more surprised when I put it back on my finger. By wearing the ring, I want to remind him of what he has done. I also want him to remember that he still has a wife.”
Love endures what can’t be endured. Love means wearing the wedding ring as a final reminder of what has been lost. That little story also reveals a crucial point. Love is not passive in the face of unjust treatment. Love takes action to shake up an intolerable situation. Love looks beyond the present to the hope of what might be in the future.
[This anecdote is exactly what I needed to hear. In a time like this when of my loved ones has given up on me, I still have the strong urge to make things work even if it means that I don’ t ever get what it is that I need or want from the situation. The world says, “Oh well!”God says, “Love endures ALL things.” I really desire to be the real deal, completely living by the word of TRUTH. So, I won’t EVER give up!]
Risky Love
To love like this doesn’t mean that everything will always work out the way you like. That only happens in cheap dime store novels. In real life, love is often crushed, bruised and rejected. Loving others is risky business. What if they abuse the love you freely give? For the Christian, there is only one possible answer: It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. The real losers in life are not those whose love is rejected. They (and they alone) know the deep pain of loving in a fallen world. They understand something of God’s heart because the Father sent his Son to the world knowing that the world would reject him. The real losers are those who refuse to love at all.
[I’m down for risks, but this sounds crazy, right? The world says, give me everything I want and if not, I am out!! Look at God’s response, sending His son (real LOVE) into the world knowing He’d be rejected. I choose to follow this example at all costs!]
In his book The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis spoke to this very point:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable … The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers … of love is Hell (p. 169).
Love stands its ground in the face of curses, slander, hatred, ill treatment, and the worst that man can dish out. I have never forgotten the words of Corrie Ten Boom in The Hiding Place. When asked how she could endure a Nazi concentration camp without bitterness, she replied, “There is no pit so deep that the love of God is not deeper still.”
That one phrase is the key to this principle. First Corinthians 13 is about the love of God, not the love of man. Romans 5:5 says that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to pour out God’s love into your heart. When the Holy Spirit has done His work, you are able to pour out the love of God that the Holy Spirit has poured into your heart. What God gives us, we are able to give to others.
[What has God given you? I know what He has given me, and I choose to ENDURE.]
{It is not simply difficult to live this way, it is impossible. But what God demands of us, the Holy Spirit supplies within us. Our deepest needs are not intellectual or emotional; our deepest needs are spiritual. It is an old story, repeated over and over again. Many of us struggle in our circumstances because we are fighting against the Lord and his plan for our lives. The answer is as plain as the nose on your face. Let each of us yield ourselves completely to the Holy Spirit. Let each one of us ask God for the love which only he can supply. And as we face hard times and difficult moments, let us pray daily, “O God, let your will be done even if it means that my will is not done.” As we relinquish the control of our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, we will find that the Holy Spirit’s power has been released in us and the love of God will become a personal reality that works in us and through us to touch those around us.}
In closing, I offer you no miracle cure for the problems of life. If it is true that into each life some rain must fall, then some of you are getting a thunderstorm right now. I don’t know when the rain will end. But it doesn’t have to destroy your life. When the love of God is your foundation, the rains can come, the winds can blow, the river can rise to the threshold, but your house will stand firm because it is built on the rock which cannot be shaken.
Tiffaney
(words in [] are the opinions of Tiffaney K. Draper. Sermon from www.keepbelieving.com)
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