LOVE PART 2

I am reading THE FOUR LOVES by C.S. Lewis, for quite some time now, and only on page 35. But running across this passage I have shared here, I think it really clear on what one of the principles of love really means. Now in the first chapter of this book, and the sections I’m reading, Lewis talks about the love of ones country. I think though that it can really be applied to life in general, the underlying principle.

C.S. Lewis writes in his book, THE FOUR LOVES, pg. 34-Lewis starts this section with introducing some words from Kipling,
“It was unfair to Kipling, who knew – wonderfully, for so homeless a man – what the love of home can mean. But the lines, in isolation, can be taken to sum up the thing. They run:

If England was what England seems
‘Ow quick we’d drop ‘er. But she ain’t!

Love never spoke that way. It is like loving your children only ‘if they’re good’, your wife only while she keeps her looks, your husband only so long as he is famous and successful. ‘No man,’ said one of the Greeks, ‘loves his city because it is great, but because it is his.’ A man who really loves his country will love her in her RUIN and DEGENERATION – “England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.” She will be to him ‘a poor thing but mine own’. He may think her good and great, when she is not, because he loves her…

I like this because when you, when I, think of love, the first thing that comes to mind is 1 Cor. 13: 4-8 –

4Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never fails…

So when I read that little snippet from Lewis, I saw the greatness of Love in this picture, even if it is about ones love for country. After Kipling’s words, Lewis writes ‘Love never spoke that way.’ It is true. True love does not drop something just because it becomes tarnished, because someone is not perfect. Just as Lewis wrote ‘it is like loving your children only ‘if they’re good’, your wife only while she keeps her looks, your husband only so long as he is famous and successful.’

Love is a commitment.
Love is a conscious choice.
Love is a promise to someone.
Love is a life style.
Love is patient,
Love is kind,
Love does not brag and is not arrogant,
Love does not act unbecomingly,
Love does not seek its own,
Love is not provoked,
Love does not take into account a wrong suffered,
Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
Love rejoices in the truth,
Love bears all things,
Love believes all things,
Love hopes all things,
Love endures all things.
Love never fails.

Love will never ultimately turn anyone away; instead love will reach out to people. True love will seek to help those who need help. True love is about giving one self to another person, in what ever form that may be, which there are many, as you have just read the list, which you can even probably come up with some more ideas.
I just pray that the love that we possess is the love that GOD has breathed into us, that GOD has instilled within us, and that we will use that Love and the Truth of GOD to reach all people, to help all people, and to correct all people, whether those people are people inside or outside of the Church.
Yes, there are those who we need to correct that exist within the Church, the Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, but we need to correct them in a Godly loving way.
As well, we must make sure that we are correct in doing so, we must make sure that we to aren’t wrong in our acquisition (I hope this word is correct in this setting) about that person. We must make sure that we take the plank out of our own eye before we can remove the speck of dust from someone else’s eye. Matt 7:1-6.