What does love look like at home?



Dear friends,

Are you at home alone at the moment, or with your family?
There are so many challenges we are facing just now aren’t there?

I’ve been thinking there is one particular challenge we are all faced with, which can be so difficult at times.
And that is having love for each other.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 tells me that even if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

So how are we to be loving at home when we are with each other 24/7? Or for some when you are having to spend so much time alone? What does this love look like? It is such a small word and we think we know what it might mean. But what, in practice, does this ‘love’ look like?

The rest of the chapter in 1 Corinthians 13 fills in and gives a body to what this love looks like and how it is to be worked out. This is the kind of love we are to show to each other in the  church among God’s people, and to others. But now the circle of people we are with is much reduced we need to apply this to our current situation – both at home and with those who we aren’t able to see as much of as we would like to.

Here is the love we are meant to show as God’s people. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
Why not spend a little longer on each phrase in these verses, so that you really get a grasp of what love looks like.

Now that is a challenge we face! How many times has your patience been tried these past few weeks? Have there been unkind words? Things didn’t go your way – how did you respond? The situation at home hasn’t changed in a long time – how do you handle that? You feel things will never get better – should I just give up hope?

There are many pressures at home. In the UK today there are sadly many homes where there is no real love.  
As believers in the Lord Jesus we have a Saviour who has shown us what love looks like and how to love. He calls us to a different kind of love. Ultimately he went to the death of the cross for you. As the hymn writer wrote, Here is love, vast as the ocean, Loving kindness as the flood, When the Prince of Life, our Ransom, Shed for us His precious blood

Through your faith in him you have the resources to be loving like this to others. There is grace available from the Lord Jesus to live like this in the home, as well as in the church and on line.

We need this grace every day. The good news is God has promised to give us the grace we need to live for him every day

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”
Lamentations 3:22, 23

Yours, in his love
Dave

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