Love is patient.
A mother snaps at her toddler for asking endless questions while she's busy preparing dinner. And immediately regrets it as she sees the hurt look on the little girl’s face.

Love does not envy.
Chloe, a student at a community college, burns with jealousy when her younger brother receives a scholarship to a prominent university. She grows more and more distant from him.

Love does not insist on its own way.
A father pressures his son to be a lawyer, like him, ignoring his son’s dreams to be an airplane mechanic.

Love Bears All Things
“I’m sorry, I just can’t handle this,” a young man tells his fiancée who developed a chronic illness. He walks away.

Love Never Ends
After 20 years together, Frank comes home one day and tells his wife, “I don’t love you anymore.” He leaves his wife and 3 crying children on the doorstep as he backs his car out of the driveway.

Our hearts cry out for the security, the surety of being loved. We crave love we can rely on. Love that never fades and never fails. The love our hearts desperately desire isn’t human love. The love of fallen man is broken – shattered, and beyond repair. We all know that’s true. Human love fails. Again and again.

The love we desperately need comes only from God.
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1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ESV tells us what real love looks like:
"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."
This is love, real love, and this is what we need.

Let God Fill You With Love
2 Thessalonians 3:5 NLT
May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ.
God placed a deep desire to be loved and to love in your heart. Ask Him to lead you into the fullness of the love He has for you.

Romans 5:5 NIV
"And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
God “pours” His love into us, enabling us to love others in ways that we never could on our own.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit who actually creates God’s loving character in us – replacing our flawed human character with Christ’s.

Galatians 5:22-23 NLT
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control.
A note in one translation says Galatians 5:22 can mean that the fruit created in our lives is love. And all the other character traits here are various expressions of love: patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, etc. That appears to be true. These are descriptions of love found in in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 above.

Holy Spirit creates love in God’s born-again sons and daughters!
1 John 4:7-8
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."

God teaches us how to love the way He does.
1 Thessalonians 4:9
"Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another."
Love Flows Through Us as We Abide in Jesus (remain heart-connected to Him).

John 15:4-5, 12
"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing... This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

Action Step:
Ask God to give you love for someone you struggle to love today! Hold it! Love isn’t just an emotion. Act on the love God gave you. Send a text. Do an act of kindness. Be patient. Forgive. Look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and express love to that person in a way that you’ve been struggling to love them.. You’ll find that love grows as we express it to others. And soon, God’s never fading, never-failing love will not only fill your heart, but overflow from you to people around you. And God will be glorified!
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