Love

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² 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. ³  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
⁴  Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 So what is love, biblically defined?  

Love is desiring what is best for others.  Love is behaving humbly and putting others first.  Love seeks God, and obedience to His revealed will, first.  Love bears and forebears.  Love endures.  Love seeks good and godly growth in others.  Love is an action, not a feeling.  Love is something that we cannot do or have apart from the grace of God.
  
These truths are being brought home to me in new ways right now.  The Lord is teaching His stubborn sheep how to be patient and kind and loving to others, even when she doesn't feel like it!  And He is teaching her in such a gentle way.  

Blessings,
Alana