the Power of Real Love

I have been wrestling lately with the idea of what real love is. Is it the romantic type of love we see in movies? Or is it the love that is unspoken but felt? Is love sentimental? Or is it materialistic? In this day and age it's hard to tell what is real and what is fake. It's sad to realize that, that's how love is sometimes too. Is the love I show everyday real love or fake love? Do I love with everything I have in me, or do I fake it til I make it? But what I have learned is that real love is the type of love that sucks. Real love hurts. Real love is painful. Real love is messy. Real love is confusing. Real love is dirty. Real love is a risk. Real love is not sentimental. Real love has no tolerance level. Real love is shown through joy, kindness, and humility. Real love goes to all measures to be shown. But in all honesty, real love, the love I want to experience is the kind where you would lay down your life. It's the love that Christ had shown us by dying on the cross. He knew the cost of our lives would be worth His and He was still willing to give it all up. That's the kind of real love I want. Yet, it seems like everyone today gets mixed up with what love really is. Love is not a new iPhone. Love is not three words spoken. Love is not a compromise. Love is not conditional. Real love, lasting love, that love; is sacrifice. So how do we reveal the power of true love? Don't have a tolerance level. The more we tolerate and put up with dismissive behaviors, the more we let others suffer from their own actions. I think that if someone is doing something hurtful or rude, they should be called out on in. But not through rudeness or anger, rather through kindness and love. You see, real love knows no peace. This real love, it understands what sin is. It understands where the evilness comes from. Loving in a real way is willingly calling others out. Loving in a real way is not being scared to go down to the dark roots of sin. Loving in a real way is what God calls us to do. Do I agree with some of the choices people make? Not at all. But do I love my friends and my peers enough to show them love while they make mistakes? Absolutely. The fact of the matter is, while I mess up and make mistakes, I still want my friends to love me. But I want them to love me enough to call me out on it too. I think that at the end of the day, no matter if you've made war or not, we need to know that we go before God, not anyone else. And when we go before God, He will know whether or not we loved to our best ability. How I see it is like this; everybody deserves to be loved. The saints. The sinners. The blind. The poor. The rich. The angry. The happy. The sad. The weak or the strong. The believers or the nonbelievers. The partiers. The uninvited. No matter who were are, and what part of life we are in, we need love. Because the label that society has given us is nonsense. The mistakes we make are a learning experience. We need love to feel valued. But our value should come from God and His real and perfect love, not the love that is fake. The power of real love extinguishes hate. The power of real love gives us joy. The power of real love leads us to the Lord. This love that leads us to the Lord shows us that we share and bask in His glory. It shows everyone that the Lord has loved us well so we can love others well. This real love, gives us a share of Jesus and a sin free life after earth.

"...Jesus answered, 'Unless I wash you, you have no share of me." -John 13:8.
So wash with Jesus and experience the true divinity of the love God has granted us.