LOVE IS A PACKAGE DEAL
I Corinthians 13:4-8
If you've seen the movie, The Blind Side, you're familiar with this true story.
When Stan and Leigh Ann Tuohy, a southern white couple, took Michael Oher into their home and made him part of their family, Michael came with baggage. The large, gentle and polite black teenager was homeless. He was raised in the projects by a drug addict mother until he suffered the trauma of being taken away from her at the age of seven and placed in the foster care system. He had a history of running away and getting into trouble at school. This uncommunicative, learning-disabled young man had built up emotional walls to protect himself.
Michael was a package deal. The Tuohy family accepted him for who he was and loved them like their own son. They put up with the criticism of their rich, white friends, struggled through all the red tape necessary just so Michael could get his driver's license, and invested in Michael's future by hiring a tutor so his grades would qualify him for a college football scholarship. They even suffered through the trials of a NCAA investigation.
Love is a package deal.
Whether we're talking about family members, friends or spouses, those we love also come with their own baggage. In addition to those things we love and respect about them, they also come with annoying habits and imperfections that rub us the wrong way, and perhaps, even hurt our feelings from time to time. As a wife, there's many times that I look at Tom and think that I can't imagine ever spending my life married to anyone else. Then there are those times when I can't imagine what I was thinking about when I married him. I didn't fall in love with a perfect man, and he didn't fall in love with a perfect woman.
We are a package deal.
I'm so glad that God doesn't wait for us to become perfect before God loves us and calls us to be God's sons and daughters. God's love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things, and never fails. In spite of our rebellious nature with our impatience,unkindness, rudeness, vanity and pride, God doesn't give up on us. All the things we may cling to, all the things we put so much energy into, all the things we believe are so important will come to an end, but God's love will always be there for us.
That's what we were created for -- to be loved by God and to love. Not just God, but other people as well.
]
The church in Corinth was in big trouble, plagued with quarrels and disunity. Among other things, people were battling over minor differences. The letters Paul wrote to the Corinthians were in response to angry letters, upset with what other people were doing and written by people themselves who were far from blameless.
Isn't it the way it goes -- the things that bother me in other people are the very things I do myself.
Chapter thirteen contains the only solution to their problems -- love. We can be the most religious and morally upright people possible. We can preach mind-blowing sermons, be incredible Bible teachers and have all the knowledge in the world, but if we don't love God and love one another as Christ loves us, we are nothing.
Loving one another -- now that can be difficult at times. Max Lucado in A Love Worth Giving comments that, at times, even Jesus seemed to have had his moments with other people. "How long do I have to put up with you?" (Mark 9:19).
However, Lucado notes that Jesus answered his own question in his God love-driven actions:
"How long must I put up with you? Until the rooster sings and the sweat stings and the mallet rings and a hillside of demons smirk at a dying God. How long? Long enough for every sin to so soak my sinless soul that Heaven will turn in horror until my swollen lips pronounces the final transaction: 'It is finished.' How long? Until it kills me."
Do I love people as Christ loves me, accepting them as a package deal? No, not all the time, but I'm working on it. More importantly, God's loving grace is at work in me, and in all of us, never giving up on us, putting up with us and forgiving us as grace transforms our human love and actions into Christ's love and actions.
What else is there? When all else fails, love remains. It is our reason for being.
After all, Lucado reminds us, life is too short for fights, and people too precious for anger. What a difference it makes when we allow the love God gives us to flow through us to others.
As John Wesley said, in the big things, the main things we all hold true, let there be unity. In the small stuff we really don't need to sweat, let there be acceptance and understanding. And in all things,
all things, let there be love.
After all, love is a package deal.
If you've seen the movie, The Blind Side, you're familiar with this true story.
When Stan and Leigh Ann Tuohy, a southern white couple, took Michael Oher into their home and made him part of their family, Michael came with baggage. The large, gentle and polite black teenager was homeless. He was raised in the projects by a drug addict mother until he suffered the trauma of being taken away from her at the age of seven and placed in the foster care system. He had a history of running away and getting into trouble at school. This uncommunicative, learning-disabled young man had built up emotional walls to protect himself.
Michael was a package deal. The Tuohy family accepted him for who he was and loved them like their own son. They put up with the criticism of their rich, white friends, struggled through all the red tape necessary just so Michael could get his driver's license, and invested in Michael's future by hiring a tutor so his grades would qualify him for a college football scholarship. They even suffered through the trials of a NCAA investigation.
Love is a package deal.
Whether we're talking about family members, friends or spouses, those we love also come with their own baggage. In addition to those things we love and respect about them, they also come with annoying habits and imperfections that rub us the wrong way, and perhaps, even hurt our feelings from time to time. As a wife, there's many times that I look at Tom and think that I can't imagine ever spending my life married to anyone else. Then there are those times when I can't imagine what I was thinking about when I married him. I didn't fall in love with a perfect man, and he didn't fall in love with a perfect woman.
We are a package deal.
I'm so glad that God doesn't wait for us to become perfect before God loves us and calls us to be God's sons and daughters. God's love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things, and never fails. In spite of our rebellious nature with our impatience,unkindness, rudeness, vanity and pride, God doesn't give up on us. All the things we may cling to, all the things we put so much energy into, all the things we believe are so important will come to an end, but God's love will always be there for us.
That's what we were created for -- to be loved by God and to love. Not just God, but other people as well.
]
The church in Corinth was in big trouble, plagued with quarrels and disunity. Among other things, people were battling over minor differences. The letters Paul wrote to the Corinthians were in response to angry letters, upset with what other people were doing and written by people themselves who were far from blameless.
Isn't it the way it goes -- the things that bother me in other people are the very things I do myself.
Chapter thirteen contains the only solution to their problems -- love. We can be the most religious and morally upright people possible. We can preach mind-blowing sermons, be incredible Bible teachers and have all the knowledge in the world, but if we don't love God and love one another as Christ loves us, we are nothing.
Loving one another -- now that can be difficult at times. Max Lucado in A Love Worth Giving comments that, at times, even Jesus seemed to have had his moments with other people. "How long do I have to put up with you?" (Mark 9:19).
However, Lucado notes that Jesus answered his own question in his God love-driven actions:
"How long must I put up with you? Until the rooster sings and the sweat stings and the mallet rings and a hillside of demons smirk at a dying God. How long? Long enough for every sin to so soak my sinless soul that Heaven will turn in horror until my swollen lips pronounces the final transaction: 'It is finished.' How long? Until it kills me."
Do I love people as Christ loves me, accepting them as a package deal? No, not all the time, but I'm working on it. More importantly, God's loving grace is at work in me, and in all of us, never giving up on us, putting up with us and forgiving us as grace transforms our human love and actions into Christ's love and actions.
What else is there? When all else fails, love remains. It is our reason for being.
After all, Lucado reminds us, life is too short for fights, and people too precious for anger. What a difference it makes when we allow the love God gives us to flow through us to others.
As John Wesley said, in the big things, the main things we all hold true, let there be unity. In the small stuff we really don't need to sweat, let there be acceptance and understanding. And in all things,
all things, let there be love.
After all, love is a package deal.
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