Love without Bounds

Love as God intended it to be is reckless, wild, abandoned, and unrestrained. It is selfless and seeks the good of another before it seeks the good of one’s own self. It hurts, it sacrifices, it inflicts self wounds. It kills doubt, jealousy, pride, hot-headedness, and no score is kept on others wrongs. It is always truthful and does not gloss over a mistake – instead it corrects it.

1 Corinthians 13 (The Msg Version)

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

There was a time when I needed to set some boundaries because my love for others had inflicted self wounds. I’d grown more love for people than for the God-man, and He called me back to Him. It felt selfish to tear the people-idols down but my love had become unrestrained for the wrong thing, for the wrong persons, and that love was to be bound. Those boundaries enabled my healing because I was able to spend time at His feet, eating at His table, and partaking of life with Him. In nowhere and in no one else can that life be found, no matter how comfy and cozy people can be.

I worry that as a blogger I will be all talk and no action, and I desperately want to live out my love for Christ. I do not want to leave a bitter taste in others mouths.

Now I hear him whispering in my ear, “Walk with me to love others again unrestrained.” This is scary because I don’t want to take my eyes off Him and make people-idols again, but I know I can trust the Master to lead me. He calls out and tells me to “Feed my Sheep.” I step out in faith to love without bounds.

 “So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You and what You’re made of
How You lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love.”

Where are you in the journey of loving others?

How have boundaries helped you?

How have you been challenged to love out of the bounds?

How can I pray for you in this area?

photo credit: Steve Charman via photopin cc