| “Whoever would foster love covers over an offense…” |
| —Proverbs 17:9a |
When you love someone, truly love him or her, you will tolerate a great deal of their off-putting behaviors. You will even tolerate behaviors with which you do not agree, or find quite distasteful.
That’s a very fair description of how God relates to those of us He has chosen as His very own children. Even though we are unworthy sinners saved by God’s grace, we are still sinners. And, we will remain sinners—redeemed sinners, but still sinners—until we pass from this life to eternal life.
Because we’re still sinners, we all too often act contrary to God’s perfect and divine will for us. In spite of our sinful behavior, God still loves us. His love is not fickle. In fact, His love, expressed through the shed blood of His precious Son, covers our sinful behavior. No matter what we do, God still loves us with His everlasting, covering love. And, dear ones, that’s exactly how God expects us to love others.
King Solomon wrote about this covering love in Proverbs 17:9:
Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.
We can hardly imagine a covering love. Our relationships with people are usually very performance-oriented. As long as the ones we love meet our minimum standard of behavior, we will love them. But, let them stray too far, or too often, from our standard of acceptable behavior, and we will begin to withhold our love from them. We think we can motivate them to modify their behavior by withholding our love. But, that punishment seldom works the way we want it to work.
We need to learn to love others in the same way that God loves us. So, this day, let’s focus on extending a covering love toward those whom God brings across our pathway. Just imagine how pleased God will be when we extend His covering love to others.
Based on a blog originally posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2016
