“Love…bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Agape love is all inclusive. It isn’t a feeling and it shouldn’t pass with time. It should grow. These four descriptions of Christian love still apply to spiritual gifts and how we should treat one another in the Christian setting. They are each limitless:

1) “Love…bears all things“. Love puts up with a lot. You can’t reach out to hurting people just to have them snap back at you without love. You can’t invest God’s active love toward someone who stabs you in the back and betrays you without love. Love will be tested because we reach out to people who aren’t there yet. So, Agape love stays faithful even when we don’t feel like it.

2) “Love…believes all things“. Love is optimistic. We read in the Bible story after story of God stepping into people’s lives and bringing changes that were permanent. So love makes us believe the best. Again, we’re not blind, but we keep both eyes open. We set boundaries so dysfunctional people can’t take advantage of us, but they will try. Jesus kept trying and even one of His own disciples wasn’t trustworthy. We don’t trust people, but we can always trust God. No one steals from Him.

3) “Love…hopes all things“. Hope is the expectation that something better is coming out of this. Hope gives me a goal to work toward. Hope and faith are interconnected, because my hope is in what I believe in. No matter how badly things go, my hope is that God will turn hearts around and bring a breakthrough. Love never stops hoping.

4) “Love…endures all things“. Patience is a quality of Agape love. Enduring means we hang in there in our belief and hope. As I’ve been reading through the Year of the Harvest testimonies that people have submitted so far, I see that each of them had to endure a lot to get to the harvest experience. Love is patient and doesn’t get discouraged.

Love has no limits. It sees God at work through us in the lives of others. Love expects the impossible and works to see the impossible become reality. Who do you know that you can let God love through you? Go to work on them, being sure to bear with them, believe for them, hope for them, and endure all their objections, until we see the breakthrough. I’m praying for you.

Tags: Christian love, endurance