"KINDNESS" and "PATIENCE" are key ingredients to LOVE!
Did you know that "KINDNESS" and "PATIENCE" are both key ingredients to LOVE? So then, what is LOVE? Love is considered an action-verb because it's not enough to simply say you LOVE someone. What matters is what you do to demonstrate that LOVE for others. LOVE is a decision that we make, which is then carried out by our actions. This means we have to make a daily decision to LOVE others.
In 1st Corinthians 13:4 it states, "Love suffers long and is kind". When it says LOVE suffers long, it is speaking of one's ability to endure and bear the shortcomings of others without acting out. When we are able to endure then we are displaying patience, which is a form of passive LOVE. Kindness never acts harsh or rude, nor is puffed up or prideful. Kindness is "LOVE in action". It is generous, giving, patient, and sacrificial. These key ingredients will produce the LOVE of God inside of us.
Now let's be honest with ourselves, we have all fallen short in being patient and kind to someone. Whether you were having a bad day or if someone pushed your button. It has happened! Often times LOVE comes for the underlying emotion we feel for someone. Our actions typically follow our emotions. That's why it's important for us to take our emotions out of it and make the decision to LOVE as God would have us to.
Making the decision to LOVE includes the everyday, little things we do for one another. Even when we aren't having the best day or feeling LOVED ourselves. Today I wanted to encourage you to abide in the LOVE of God as you strive to LOVE others. If we LOVE as God has called us to, kindness and patience will be evident through our actions.
Ephesians 4:31-32 tells us, "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
"There is Power in unlocking your HEART to the Word of God!
