Last year I posted an aticle with a long list of definitions of what love is, 23 definitions to be exact. Since you and I have the tendency to be distracted and forgetful, I want to post that list again.
Here’s a gospel-centered reminder about how to love. But you don’t have to be romantically in love to find this list practical. Every healthy relationship requires love and sacrifice, so if you’re a parent, child, sibling, neighbor, pastor or co-worker, this list is for you.
God bless you in your relationships, and may the Holy Spirit empower you to love with a love that is not your own.
23 Things That Love Is
- LOVE IS … being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others without impatience or anger.
- LOVE IS … actively fighting the temptation to be critical and judgmental toward another while looking for ways to encourage and praise.
- LOVE IS … making a daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.
- LOVE IS … being lovingly honest and humbly approachable in times of misunderstanding.
- LOVE IS … being more committed to unity and understanding than you are to winning, accusing or being right.
- LOVE IS … making a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness and failure and to resist the temptation to offer an excuse or shift the blame.
- LOVE IS … being willing, when confronted by another, to examine your heart rather than rising to your defense or shifting the focus.
- LOVE IS … making a daily commitment to grow in love so that the love you offer to another is increasingly selfless, mature and patient.
- LOVE IS … being unwilling to do what is wrong when you have been wronged, but looking for concrete and specific ways to overcome evil with good.
