Smart Love
I love y'all. More than you can understand. I love knowing you, talking to you, and watching our relationship grow from Sunday School teacher to mentor to maybe friend.
Some of you love me back :) And it makes me so full.
But there's more to love than affection. It's more than feelings or memories or experiences. And our love for one another can't be just plain love. It needs to be more.
The greatest command is love: Love the Lord, love others, love yourself (Luke 10:27). It's how others know we are His disciples (John 13:34-35) and it reflects the love that Jesus had for us (1 John 4:19).
Love is described deeply in 1 Corinthians 13: it's patient, kind, honors others, protects, hopes, trusts, and perseveres. It doesn't envy, keep a record of wrongs, boast and isn't proud or selfish.
You probably know all this about love.
But love is something else that maybe you haven't considered:
"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God," (Philippians 1:9-11, NIV, bold words mine).
[This verse brings tears to my eyes. It's the first lesson I taught you, before I was ever your teacher. Some of you still have the bookmarks. You are so precious.]
Love is smart.
Please re-read that verse above. Most of the description in it focuses on being smart with your love, not on loving. And I would even say that most people love to love; they're just not always smart about it.
That Hebrew word in Philippians 1 for abound has this meaning: "to have abundance, more than enough, to overflow, to have an excessive amount of something, ranging form moderate excess to a very great degree of excess." (Zondervan NIV Exhaustive Concordance, Second Edition.)
Our love is to ABOUND--overflow, have excess--in KNOWLEDGE. Note that it doesn't instruct us to overflow in LOVE, but to overflow in KNOWLEDGE as we love.
And when we have smart love, we are able to discern what is best.
Do you need to discern some best today? Best class, best friend, best teacher? Best job, best decision, best path? Best person to marry, best career, best use of time?
Be careful, though. Because that word for best isn't what you think. When you hear people talk about God's best, they may not exactly mean this Greek verb, diaphero. And it means "to differ; to be more valuable than" (same Zondervan Concordance).
God's best means different. God's best means more valuable than anything else. God's best isn't just great; it's HOLY. Weird. God-focused. (Which may actually seem not great at the time.) God's best sometimes means saying no to a degree, stopping a relationship, or choosing a path that everyone you know tells you is dumb.
Smart love might not seem smart to people. But it's smart because it's from God.
And when we use our smart love to discern what is best, we have the potential to be pure and blameless. Clean. Not trapped by sin. When you're pure and blameless, you are confident in yourself because your identity is in the righteousness of God. That righteousness comes by faith in Jesus and a living, active relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit.
Smart love makes you wise. Holy. Full of the fruit of righteousness, meaning you live according to the fact that you have complete access to God. You know God, you love Him, He is your life, and that identity determines who you are.
Your identity is based on who you are to God, meaning you know and receive His love and are therefore able to love others like He wants you to.
["Come on, Leslie. Get to the point." I hear you.]
Here it is: How smart is your love?
Not just smart because you're adults. Not just smart because you're in college. Smart based on God's Word. You cannot be this kind of smart--different, holy, best--without it.
I love you. I want you to be smart. I want you to have smart love.
So I'm considering hosting a VERY intense Bible Study once you all get home from college. No details yet, but I want to know how smart you want your love to be. Are you willing to spend hours a day in God's Word on your own? Would you drive to White Bluff multiple times?
I just want to know who is interested. Please comment below or email me at myleslienotebook@gmail.com. If y'all are willing to have smart love, I'll help you do it.
#smartlove
@leslienotebook
PLEASE share this! It's open to any high school or college girl who wants smart love.
Some of you love me back :) And it makes me so full.
But there's more to love than affection. It's more than feelings or memories or experiences. And our love for one another can't be just plain love. It needs to be more.
The greatest command is love: Love the Lord, love others, love yourself (Luke 10:27). It's how others know we are His disciples (John 13:34-35) and it reflects the love that Jesus had for us (1 John 4:19).
Love is described deeply in 1 Corinthians 13: it's patient, kind, honors others, protects, hopes, trusts, and perseveres. It doesn't envy, keep a record of wrongs, boast and isn't proud or selfish.
You probably know all this about love.
But love is something else that maybe you haven't considered:
"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God," (Philippians 1:9-11, NIV, bold words mine).
[This verse brings tears to my eyes. It's the first lesson I taught you, before I was ever your teacher. Some of you still have the bookmarks. You are so precious.]
Love is smart.
Please re-read that verse above. Most of the description in it focuses on being smart with your love, not on loving. And I would even say that most people love to love; they're just not always smart about it.
That Hebrew word in Philippians 1 for abound has this meaning: "to have abundance, more than enough, to overflow, to have an excessive amount of something, ranging form moderate excess to a very great degree of excess." (Zondervan NIV Exhaustive Concordance, Second Edition.)
Our love is to ABOUND--overflow, have excess--in KNOWLEDGE. Note that it doesn't instruct us to overflow in LOVE, but to overflow in KNOWLEDGE as we love.
And when we have smart love, we are able to discern what is best.
Do you need to discern some best today? Best class, best friend, best teacher? Best job, best decision, best path? Best person to marry, best career, best use of time?
Be careful, though. Because that word for best isn't what you think. When you hear people talk about God's best, they may not exactly mean this Greek verb, diaphero. And it means "to differ; to be more valuable than" (same Zondervan Concordance).
God's best means different. God's best means more valuable than anything else. God's best isn't just great; it's HOLY. Weird. God-focused. (Which may actually seem not great at the time.) God's best sometimes means saying no to a degree, stopping a relationship, or choosing a path that everyone you know tells you is dumb.
Smart love might not seem smart to people. But it's smart because it's from God.
And when we use our smart love to discern what is best, we have the potential to be pure and blameless. Clean. Not trapped by sin. When you're pure and blameless, you are confident in yourself because your identity is in the righteousness of God. That righteousness comes by faith in Jesus and a living, active relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit.
Smart love makes you wise. Holy. Full of the fruit of righteousness, meaning you live according to the fact that you have complete access to God. You know God, you love Him, He is your life, and that identity determines who you are.
Your identity is based on who you are to God, meaning you know and receive His love and are therefore able to love others like He wants you to.
["Come on, Leslie. Get to the point." I hear you.]
Here it is: How smart is your love?
- Do you know Jesus? Do you hear Him? Does He hear you?
- Are you full of the Holy Spirit? How do you know?
- Do you have the ability to love others? Not just those that you want to love (it doesn't take Jesus to love those people!) but the people who need love even though they are hard to love?
- Is your love for everyone based in God's Word?
- Are you getting to know God better every day by studying His Word? NOT JUST YOUR DEVO. [Don't get me wrong. I love devos. Read one every morning. But no devo or blog (even this one!) can take the place of real Bible Study.]
- Do you love God more than anyone or anything else? That's where it starts.
This is the love we have for God. This is the love we have for each other. And if your answer to any of these questions is no, you desperately need smart love.
"This is my prayer!" (Philippians 1:9). I PRAY SMART LOVE FOR YOU .
Not just smart because you're adults. Not just smart because you're in college. Smart based on God's Word. You cannot be this kind of smart--different, holy, best--without it.
I love you. I want you to be smart. I want you to have smart love.
So I'm considering hosting a VERY intense Bible Study once you all get home from college. No details yet, but I want to know how smart you want your love to be. Are you willing to spend hours a day in God's Word on your own? Would you drive to White Bluff multiple times?
I just want to know who is interested. Please comment below or email me at myleslienotebook@gmail.com. If y'all are willing to have smart love, I'll help you do it.
#smartlove
@leslienotebook
PLEASE share this! It's open to any high school or college girl who wants smart love.
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