About What We Call Love

DAILY VITAMIN
- About What We Call Love
"Many waters cannot quench the flames of love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man tries to buy it with everything he owned, he couldn't do it." (Songs of Solomon 8:7 TLB)
     In today's nugget, I would like to tell you what what we call love really is. There have been many definitions, and multiple illustrations, but love has a simple universal characteristic wherever it may be found. So whether you are a parent, a spouse, a friend or what have you, this understanding of love will help you practise it better in your relationships.
     1 John 4:7 tells us that there's a perfect way to walk in love, and we must practise it every day. Hence, understand this four guiding principles of love and help others do the same, and it will change your view and attitude towards how you should truly walk in love towards yourself and the people you care about.
And these are what you should know about what we call love:
[1]
Many of the things people do these days in society are meant to initiate attraction, and seldom to promote love. Attraction may bring the person, but it takes love to keep them. And love is simply the sincerity, the empathy, the open-mindedness, the commitment and every other thing that focuses on helping the other person become independent and strong, even when the attraction is no more.
[2]
Love is the ability to keep an open mind towards a person even when they don't deserve it. It is responding not on the premise of the present state of the relationship, but on its potential.
[3]
Love has many faces. Love can be kind, it can be cruel. Love can be soft, and it can be hard. But love always cares; whether it's kind, cruel, soft or hard, it does it all because it cares.
[4]
You can't force someone to love you. It's not in your power. Love is meant to be a conscious decision not a compelled duty. In fact, love when forced isn't love anymore, it's pity. And you're way better than pity. You deserve better. You are worthy of love.
    Always remember that, and also that God really loves you; and He knows you can also learn to love and be loved the right way. This isn't any new knowledge; this is something you should already know. And if you didn't, then now you know.
"Love 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. It 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]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love 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]." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 AMP)

Confession:
I am loved by the Most High. And because He loves me, I know I am worthy of love. It doesn't matter what people say, or how they treat me, I am worthy of love. In the same vein, by reason of this love, I also understand that every other person is worthy of love. Even when they don't deserve it, it's in my natural disposition to love them, to the glory of God.