{"id":6077,"date":"2023-02-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-12T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=6077"},"modified":"2023-02-03T21:15:49","modified_gmt":"2023-02-04T03:15:49","slug":"true-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=6077","title":{"rendered":"True Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Abundant Life: Riches money can\u2019t buy\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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The abundant life knows what true love is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our society equates love with an emotional roller coaster ride or a feeling that we can\u2019t live without a certain person. Love is not always about two people falling helplessly and hopelessly into an uncontrollable rage of passion. Just ask anyone who\u2019s been married for any significant length of time and they will tell you love goes way beyond physical attraction. True love is something we do. In fact, it\u2019s a bunch of stuff we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love is a big thing to God. He refers to it throughout the Bible. 1 Corinthians 13 goes into great detail explaining what real love is all about. Here we learn some things we do or don\u2019t do if we really want to love someone: be patient, be kind, be truthful, be hopeful, don\u2019t envy, don\u2019t boast, don\u2019t be rude, don\u2019t be prideful, don\u2019t be self-seeking, don\u2019t get angry, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of love can be between spouses (Ephesians 5:25) but these scriptures can also be used as a gauge to loving our neighbors (Mark 12:31), loving our families (Ephesians 5:25), loving one another (John 13:34,), and even loving our enemies (Matthew 5:43).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, it\u2019s not easy to love enemies, our neighbors, our families or even our spouses because they are all people\u2014and people are so unlovable. I\u2019m not referring to criminals and those who perform unspeakable atrocities. I\u2019m talking about those we may be close to and have contact with every day. They can irritate and frustrate us to distraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loving people doesn\u2019t mean never getting irritated or frustrated with them. Loving people doesn\u2019t mean always condoning what they do or agreeing with what they say. Loving people doesn\u2019t mean we shield them from the consequences of their decisions. Loving people doesn\u2019t mean we turn a blind eye to their faults. Rather, loving people means we deal with them in a kind, patient, respectful, honest, and humble way. (1 Corinthians 13)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, that\u2019s how God loves us. He knows what we\u2019ve done and loves us anyway. He separates the person from the action. He can hate the action but love the person. He never says what we\u2019ve done is okay when it\u2019s not. However, He always deals with us in a loving manner. And He knows what true love is all about because HE IS LOVE! (1 John 4:8)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c<\/em>\u2026I have come that they may have life and that they<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

may have it more abundantly.\u201d ~John 10:10 (KJV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Abundant Life: Riches money can\u2019t buy\u2026 The abundant life knows what true love is. Our society equates love with an emotional roller coaster ride or a feeling that we can\u2019t live without a certain person. Love is not always … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}