Love is Kind

I want to continue in this thread of reflection on the way that love is described in 1 Corinthians 13.  What does it mean that love is kind?

Here is a definition that I came across from Merriam-Webster:
kind  adjective

: having or showing a gentle nature and a desire to help others : wanting and liking to do good things and to bring happiness to others
A gentle nature.  Nature is at the core of who we are. It is in our DNA.  You might even say it is our DNA.  God is love.  That is who God is.  There are  many statements about the nature of God.  God is omnipresent.  Meaning that he is always present.  God is omniscient.  Meaning he knows all.  God is omnipotent.  Meaning he can do anything and is all powerful.  These statement tells us about God at His core.  This is God's nature.  He is these things and will never cease to be these things.  This is what makes him God and you and I not God.   By our very nature we are none of these.
I think the most profound statement for us to understand about the nature of God is that God is love.  If we can really grasp this aspect of God's nature it truly changes the way that we understand and see God.  When begin to understand that God is love and not just loving or does love.  We can see that God is always going to act in love.  He cant help it.  It is who God is.  This means his commandment are an expression of love.  His guidance and direction are an expression of love.  It means that his desire is to help us.  Always.  This means we have to throw out any idea of a punishing, wrathful, vengeful, God.  Love is kind.  Love is gentle by its very nature and desires to help others and likes to do good and bring happiness to others.  God desires what is best for your and me.  God desires to help you.  God desires to bring happiness to our life.  It is his very nature.  God has your best interest at heart.

I need God to work on my love so that it can be more gentle at it's very core.  I need God's help to shape me so that I love from a pure place of desire to help others and bring happiness to others.  At my very core I am not love.  But the promise of the scripture is that God, who is love, will transform us so that our love can become like his love and our character like his character.   It is a process that we have to submit to.  But we can trust that if God calls us into this live changing relationship with Him it is what is best for us.  We can trust that if he says he will "take from us our hearts of stone and give us a heart of flesh" than it too is what is best for us and he will do it.  I want my love to be gentle by nature and desire to help and bring happiness to others.

Love is kind.

In Christ's Love and mine,
Doug

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