First things first...

I loved how practical the teaching was in the session I attended entitled, "I Quit! Loving When Its Hard." All the sessions were rich with truth, but this one especially focused on application in the day-to-day situations we find ourselves in.

The main texts that we went to during this session were 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a and Romans 12:9-21. The first talks about Love, and how first love is patient, some translations say longsuffering. The fact that we are told that love is patient or longsuffering should be a clue to us that love is not all roses and chocolate, but that real Biblical love is hard. The word used for longsuffering in this passage in the Greek is makrothymeo which is translated to two words "suffer" and "long". Wayne Mack said, "This is a word that was used to describe a calm and gentle response to the kind of suffering, pressures, difficulties, or injuries that are caused by other people, not circumstances."

However, as patient as I try to be with people I need to admit something. Very often, the difficulty I have in loving people is often my problem, not theirs. Am I striving to suffer long without growing angry or sinning against them? The fact is, there is a "double difficulty" in loving others - me and them!

Before I can love people in a way that is pleasing to the Lord I have to do something. I have to acknowledge the sin in my life that is keeping me from loving others. That is one thing sin does, it keeps me from genuinely loving anyone besides myself. So, I turn to Galatians 5:16-22. Of course, verse 22 is the famous "Fruits of the Spirit" passage, but let's keep things in context and back up to verse 16. In this passage, Paul is speaking to the church at Galatia and giving them some instructions for living. He is pointing out what it looks like to walk by the Spirit. He talks about how you cannot walk by the flesh and by the Spirit at the same time. Then, he lists out what walking by the flesh looks like, followed by the verse outlining the fruits, or evidences of a Spirit-led life.

Let's be honest, how long do you spend looking through Galatians 5:19-21? If I am going to love others the way I ought, I need to spend time searching my heart and asking myself if there is anything I need to confess and repent of in my life that is in that list... anger, jealousy, idolatry, envy, strife, "things like these". Repentance is needed before I can love others generously and biblically. Sigh, this is hard. But it is good. It is necessary.

So, I start on this journey of learning to love people. Next time I will share a scenario we went through, and how we worked to change the thought process behind the initial response by digging into the Romans passage.

For now, kids are waking up and pouring into the living room... I need to go love on them!

P.S. Thank you, Janie Street, for teaching so clearly on such a practical topic!