The 7 Characteristics Of The Perfect Way Of Love

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” -Matthew 5:43-48

Today we consider the most perfect way of life that anyone can live, the way of love. And we’ll be addressing the 7 ways we can best understand and live out the way of love.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

Point number one, and the most important is that we are only capable of any sort of love because God loves us, and pours His love into us through Jesus Christ. He fills our tank with love. And we pour out that love to others.

Before I knew Jesus, I loved my parents, I loved my friends, but the truth is, that love didn’t go too far. And it wasn’t agape love, love for the sake of the other person. It was a sort of selfish love.

We can’t love out of ourselves. That love will always be limited and empty, and ultimately useless.

But if you spend time with God daily, pray, read our Bibles, we’ll be poured into, with the love of God, that comes through the Holy Spirit into us.

If I try to drive my vehicle, and there is no gas in the tank. I can turn the key as many times as I want, but it will never go anywhere. We’ve got to make sure our tanks are full of God’s love, so we can pour it out to others.

Point number two, if you’re going to love you have to let yourself love. That means vulnerability.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

Plain and simple, I’m trapped as a person between two difficult alternatives. One, I can love people, and those people will hurt me. And that will hurt badly. And do damage to my soul.

The other option is to cut myself off from people, put up walls, don’t let people get to close, and in that case, like Lewis wrote, my heart turns to stone slowly, and I become bitter, empty, miserable, and alone.

So, the only option, is to love people and keep loving people, and to be hurt.

That leads right into Point 3, to love is to endure emotional beatings. Some of us try to avoid these emotional beatings that love brings as much as we can. We’re always trying to prevent them from hitting. But we can’t really prevent them. Because to love is to be vulnerable.

And 1st Corinthians 13 says Love is longsuffering, it suffers through all things. And it keeps loving people through it all.

Can I become OK with the fact of emotional pain connected to loving others?

That has been a question for me, since beginning here in Owosso a few years back. Because, every person I saw walk into dinner church, or morning services, even once, I loved to some level. And people who came often, I learned to love them more deeply, and many of you, I learned to love very deeply, and hope for, and pray for,

If you want to avoid loving people don’t don’t don’t pray for them. Because if you pray for someone you can’t help but love them very very much with a spiritual love that is very powerful.

And believe me, it hurts so bad, when that person goes back to the ways of the world, disappears, gets snared again by the sins of the flesh. It’s brutal. It hurts bad. And it’s hard to avoid becoming jaded. Only God’s love can heal these repeated beatings. Only God can heal these repeated beatings.