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| “Love is patient, love is kind.” |
| —1 Corinthians 13:4a |
The words “I was just pretending” can be the most devastating words, especially if they come from the lips of someone who said that he or she loved you.
Nearly 60 years ago, when I was in high school, there was a football player who developed a reputation for lying about his feelings of love in order to trick girls into submitting to his advances. Even as his behavior became relatively well known—and even as he left a wake of tearful girls—he still kept successfully tricking an ever-increasing number of other girls into submitting to his improper requests.
Genuine love is never wrapped in pretense. As the Apostle Paul explains, genuine love has well-defined qualities because it is God-breathed love. Notice what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:4-5:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
The love that Paul describes is totally opposite from the utterly selfish “I was just pretending” love of the high school football player from more than half a century ago. As rude, crude, and hurtful as the football player’s lies were to countless young women, so magnificent, supportive, kind, totally truthful, and awe-inspiring is the love that God shows to those He has chosen to belong to Himself.
As we begin this new day, let us seek God-breathed love, so that we may show the world around us what genuine love looks like. The culture that surrounds us will, frankly, be startled by this look at genuine love. And, some of the individuals who cross our pathway may be drawn irresistibly into that amazing and transformative God-breathed love.
Based on a blog originally posted on Wednesday, January 13, 2016
