TAKE Delight

Are You Pretending to Love Him or Her? – Part 2

We ended our last post with the thought of putting God on display.  But what would it look like if we put God on display in our relationships?  How much differently would the relationship look?  What actions can we take?  So to bring you back up to speed, I’ll repeat The Bible verse we used.

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.” – ‭‭Romans‬ ‭12:9-10‬ ‭NLT‬‬

As you’ve begun to understand, the Bible exposes us for being “normal”, however its goal is to show you that “normal” is not enough and doesn’t work.  In the next few paragraphs, I want to paint the picture of what love looks like when you exchange “normal” for “uncommon”.

20170312 NLC Blog - Pretending to Love - Part 2If we were God (who is the definition of “uncommon”), here’s what it would look like:

  • Hate what is wrong.  To truly love someone is to “Hate what is wrong”.  You’d be on guard against anything that’s wrong.  If wrong arrived, you’d fight against it and eliminate it.  What if in your most important relationship you fought against and eliminated wrongs?  You’d be like God and take your relationship from “normal” to “uncommon”.
  • Hold tightly to what is good.  To truly love someone is to “hold tightly [have a tight grip] to what is good.”  To add to eliminating wrong, you now hold on to what is good.  Your total focus is only on good.  You can no longer see what is wrong or even bad.  Sounds like what The Blood of Jesus does for Christians.  You can’t even think wrong thoughts when it relates to someone you love.  You ignore their wrongness; love covers it from sight.  Now that’s not “normal”.  Love fades as we begin to turn our eyes away from the good thoughts, which is “normal”.
  • Have genuine affection.  To truly love someone is to have “genuine affection”.   So a person (you) can not have dishonest, hidden or reserved affection for another.  If that’s the case, then more times than not, this is what we do.  Why?  Because (you guessed it) that’s “normal”!  Do you even know what it means to be affectionate?  I didn’t realize the vastness of the word.  Let me throw a few of its meanings your way.  If you were God, you’d be “attached” to the person you love.   If you were God, you’d be “devoted”.  You’d be “affected” by the person; they “affect” you emotionally.  You’re not going to like this next one and it’s how God treats us.  You’d be “infected” by the person like a disease.  You won’t be able to shake them.  Okay enough, I need to move on, and just think we’ve not gotten to the 16 levels of love yet.  We’re still at ground level or better yet the basement level.
  • Take delight in honoring each other.  To truly love someone is to “take delight in honoring” them.  “Take” is one of those action words that has an implied “you”.  You must take [as with force] delight in the object of your love.  BTW – men know this all so well when they have a car they love.  They take delight in it.  The same applies to a relationship.  TAKE delight; try that out!  The only things we should take is delight, not disappointment or frustration as do “normal” people, but we choose delight.

I’m sure I could go on, but I didn’t continue beyond this verse.  As you may recall, I’m writing a book we’re calling the “16 Levels of Love” and the ground floor has enough on it to make any relationship we have, “uncommon”.  The goal of the book is to empower you with what you need to have relationships like no one else.

Question: What could you do or action could be taken to display God in one area of your relationship?  Leave a comment.

Facebook Comments

Leave a Reply