Love Endures

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love

Endures (5278) (hupomeno [word study] from hupo = under + meno = abide, remain) literally means to remain or abide under and figuratively refers to abiding under not simply with stoical resignation, but with a vibrant hope. It describes is not the spirit which can passively bear things, but the spirit which, in bearing them, can conquer and transmute them. The idea is to continue in an activity despite resistance and opposition.

Hupomeno (present tense) speaks of perseverance and tenacity in all circumstances. It means to endure in times of pain, suffering, deprivation, hatred, loss, and loneliness.

In secular Greek hupomeno was a military term used of an army’s holding a vital position at all costs. Every hardship and every suffering was to be endured in order to hold fast.

Love only takes 1, we can only love because God first loved us.

1 John 4:15-21”Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.19 We love because he first loved us.20 If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. “


The Love Chapter

• What does the world tell us love is/looks like?


• The “Easy”, “Feeling” traits-Patient, Kind, doesn't envy, is not Proud, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil, rejoices in truth, protects, trusts, hopes.
 

• Love Endures (see above)


• it only takes 1 to Love (Love is a choice)


• It is not about You, but it starts with a work in you (see 1 John 4)


• Love is not self-seeking


• Love doesn't run away just because things get hard


• Why the world has given up on Love- they haven't given up on Love, but short of understanding the Love of Christ, there is no earthly example of Love that is complete or possible outside of God. 

• Love without God is imperfect. (1 John 4)


• Christ's example, what we are called to do


• Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride, this is our example (Ephesians 5;25-33 “25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,30 because we are members of his body.31 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. 

• There is great JOY in Love, however JOY isn't just a fleeting passing 

• feeling of “moments”, it is a continual satisfaction.

• The love Chapter, as it has become known, has been on my heart for the last several months. I compare what the scriptures say and compare it to the world view of Love today and to no big surprise, it just doesn't fit. I am not an expert on Love, as a matter of fact, that has been one of my biggest prayer requests to the Lord is to show me how to Love like He Loves us. I've had several years of God literally just breaking me down and showing me things that haven't always been pleasant, fun, or even survivable without His mercy and grace. Until recently, I didn't even know what He had taught me. I have had an odd thing happen over these past several months, God has placed people in my path that were having a tough time in their relationship. In each instance, the issue went something like this “I just don't feel connected to [Spouse's name] anymore. It's not that I'm mad, I just don't feel like I Love them anymore.” This is where things get a bit weird for me. First, I'm not a counselor, nor would I ever want to be. This being said, I firmly believe that God wants to use us in His work and He does this by allowing us to be involved and share our own first hand encounters with Him with others. 

There are a few things to start with here. First, let's look at some of the key attributes listed along with some synonyms and antonyms for them (Sometimes I find it very helpful to understand the opposite of the trait so I know what I don't want to be).

• Patient:[Synonym] Accommodating, Calm, Composed, Easy Going, Untiring.
• [Antonym]Agitated, Frustrated, Impatient, Intolerant, Unwilling.

• Kind: [Synonym] Affectionate, All Heart, Benevolent, Charitable, Compassionate, Friendly, Gentle, Considerate
• [Antonym]Bad, Bitter, Cruel, Inconsiderate, Mean, Unfriendly
• Bears: [Synonym] Abide, Admit, Allow, Encounter, Experience, Permit, Tolerate.
• Endures:[Synonym] Cope with, Go through, live through, stick it out, stomach, weather, withstand, brave, hang in, keep up, live out.
• Fails:[Synonym] Abort, Backslide, Blunder, Breakdown, Deteriorate, fall 

Now put your name in the front of each of the attributes. Does this describe you? Are you Patient, Kind, etc? As of late, these have not been the issue, the issue as of late seems to deal directly with “Endures”. This is where things get hard. I never understood when people who have been married for a long time would say “You have to work at your marriage”. God has had me on a journey and here is what I here him saying. “When you Love someone, YOU are making a decision to love them REGARDLESS of if they Love you or not”. Now that feels like it should be a game changer, but guess what, it is not. If you truly Love someone, then their response to your Love has no effect on the nature of your Love. Yes it is nice to be loved back, but if we Love the way that God wants us to Love, then reciprocal love is not a requirement. Today's society is caught up in the “idea” of Love. The “warm fuzzy”, the “New” in a relationship, there is no romanticizing about the couple who has been married for 20 years and the wife finding joy in picking up dirty socks as a token of love for her husband(today's society would have that as grounds for Divorce) or a husband doing the dishes as a token of appreciation, not a hail Mary pass for some action in the bedroom. The “working at it” part of a relationship is the “Endure”. Let's look at some of those synonyms: Cope with, Go through, Live Through (meaning you didn't die), Stomach, Weather, Withstand. These are not “warm fuzzy” times. These are the challenges, the hard stuff that YOU have to work through.

The Endures part of Love is the hard stuff, it is the
stuff often laced with hurt or often times even numbness or hard
heartedness. The Endures part of love is when you
must choose Love over Sin. Love is the answer,
Love is always past and present tense(1Peter
4;8”Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love
covers a multitude of sins.”). We are only able to love because Christ first loved
us. If we could just stop there and show that kind
of love to everyone, the Gospel would have no limitations, Satan would have
no foot hold on this earth, and the name of Jesus would already be on
the lips of the tribes of EVERY nation.
Well, that's all now for the first post in the "Into Your Presence" blog.
Feel free to post your comments, questions, etc.
Your servant,

Glenn