Definition Of Love
I find the more I give love and display love, the happier I am. I call this walking in love. And no I don’t mean the kind of love that is exclusive to people who have a significant other that they are intimate with. I am talking about walking in love where you are able to love strangers, family, friends, and even enemies. You are able to exemplify this by pouring kindness onto another person whether they deserve it or not. You prove you are walking in love by taking the higher road when dealing with difficult people such as co-workers. You show love by providing the best customer service on your jobs and on the streets. How about letting a car in while driving in traffic? What about praying for your enemies? There are so many little things we all can do to display love. But to do it, we must first know the definition of love and be mature enough and humble enough to give love. Then and only then should we expect to receive love.
But how do you walk in love? How do we even know what love is? Of course God provides a definition of love. I found that when I read and meditate on 1 Corinthians 13:4-13, that a calmness comes over me. I am able to handle a difficult situation better. And for that reason, I have the scripture in 1 Corinthians 13:4-13 hanging in my cubicle at work. I bet if more people read and believed what God has shared in 1 Corinthians 13:4-13 daily, the world would truly be a better place. I think there would be less anxiety attacks, less depression, less anger, and ultimately less violence.
I believe 1 Corinthians 13:4-13 is very powerful, yet I do not hear many church leaders referencing it. Let me encourage you to read the following (1 Corinthians 13: 4-13) from the Amplified Bible:
4Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.
5It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].
6It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
7Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
8Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy ([a]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].
9For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect).
10But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).
11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.
12For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as [b]in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand [c]fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been [d]fully and clearly known and understood [[e]by God].
13And so faith, hope, love abide [faith–conviction and belief respecting man’s relation to God and divine things; hope–joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love–true affection for God and man, growing out of God’s love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Walking in love,
Tayarisha Joyce