Lists of Love
"So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity."
Colossians 3:12-14 NASB1995
In this list of Christian attributes, it is once again “love” that is above all others. The NASB says “beyond all these things”, but almost all other translations render it “Above all…”. “Over all” could also be considered in light of the illustration of putting on a garment that is being used in this text. “Put on a heart of compassion, humility, gentleness, etc. That which is put on over/above all of these is “love”. Love is what ties everything together.
Love “is the perfect bond of unity”. Everywhere you seem to turn in the scriptures discussing unity, there you find love. Without love, there can be no true unity. Without love there can be no lasting unity, Love is needed to bind the people of God together in fellowship to one another and to Him. Any time there is a breakdown in the unity of God’s people, every time, at the heart of it is a breakdown in love. A failure in unity is not in unity itself, but in those attributes that form unity. Any or all of the attributes listed in Colossians 3:12-14, but none more so than love.
The idea of “perfect” in the “perfect bond of unity” is completeness. Whole. Mature. Think of gluing something together. Where the glue is not, neither is what you are trying to bond. If you want what you are bonding together to truly stick and hold, you know you need to cover the whole thing. That’s the best and tightest and most secure bond. In a garment, you need tight stitching all the way through. The tighter the stitching the better the bond. If you look at a garment and see wide gaps between stitches you know that garment is much more likely to come apart. The tighter the “love”, the more likely that bond of unity is to hold through the tests, tribulations, difficulties, challenges, and hardships that a relationship might face.
But the most important part of the verse is not what love is, but what you do with it. Love is “the perfect bond of unity”, but what you do with it is, you put it on! You choose it. You choose to wear it. Throughout your day, don’t put on selfishness but selflessness. Don’t put on arrogance, but humility. Don’t put on harshness but gentleness. Don’t put on a temper but patience. Don’t put on a grudge but forgiveness. Don’t put on envy or strife or jealousy or hatred, but put on love. Above all, over all, put on love. When you choose to put on love, you are putting on discipleship of Jesus.
In your life, in your daily choices, your daily walk, may you choose to put on love.
コメント