LOVE - The True Beauty Behind The Mask

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We live in a culture where love is a bit confusing. We say, "I love you, wife". "I love you, girlfriend." "I love you, dog." "I love you, chocolate." Love can mean that we want to devour a person. Love can mean something we enjoy watching on television.

The first step to controlling the emotion of love is to know that love, first and foremost, is an action. When you live with grace and forgiveness for those around you, that is love.

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However, love can also mean, "I would do anything to make this person's life better." Now that's real love. Real love doesn't care about beauty or funniness. Love doesn't care about education. Love doesn't care about skills. Love goes much deeper. It's care for human good. It's the willingness to sacrifice things that you like so that somebody else can have it better. That's Love.

Often, to receive that kind of love, we build masks to try to trick people into loving us. And what we're really doing as is trying to get people to consume us, as they would consume a product. To look at us, analyze us, and say, "Yes, I want that. I want to consume that." That's not what real love does. Love doesn't consume someone else. Love gives.

Love is an action. It's what you do for people. Love is something you can have for a complete stranger, because love is care for human good. So, if you say to a person, "I love you, " that means you care about their wellbeing even though you don't even know them.

The greatest love, then, is love that goes beyond the mask. Real love comes from someone who knows what mask you're wearing, doesn't really mind it, and says, "I love you anyway just the way you are." The greatest love is love without masks, beyond the masks, beyond the fake things that you feel that you have to earn love. The greatest love is the kind that goes beyond that.

1 Corinthians 13:4-5
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."

Thanks for reading!!