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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI love your new SUV!\u201d \u201cI love this restaurant!\u201d \u201cI love that movie\u2019s soundtrack.\u201d Countless times, I have expressed these types of sentiments. Perhaps in my eagerness to describe a sincere\u00a0appreciation\u00a0<\/em>for things, I casually say I\u00a0love<\/em>\u00a0them. As innocent as this may appear, I begin to suspect that the careless and repeated misapplication of a word\u2014especially one as foundational as\u00a0love<\/em>\u2014tends to dull its rich meaning. Since \u201cGod is love\u201d (1 John 4:8), that word should be reserved primarily for my affection for God and neighbor.<\/p>\n \u00a0In 1 Corinthians 13:4\u20138, St. Paul delivers one of the most beautiful passages ever offered on the nature of love. Love, he says, is long-suffering and kind. It rejoices in truth and bears all things. It believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love\u00a0never<\/em>\u00a0ends. St. Paul\u2019s message is profound, stirring, and timeless. In a contemporary society that often encourages prideful individualism, love is the corrective measure.<\/p>\n Christ Himself designates love as the identifying mark of His followers: \u201cA new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another\u201d (John 13:34\u201335). Love, then, is the God-given attribute that creates and sustains existence itself. We innately desire to love and be loved. God\u2019s unfathomable love for us, exemplified through Christ\u2019s death on the cross, calls us to both give love and accept love.<\/p>\n We do not have to abandon our fondness for cars, food, music, or other \u201cstuff.\u201d Indeed, God created matter for our sustenance and measured enjoyment. However, the heart\u2019s greatest desires and concerns should primarily exhibit a relational aspect, indicative of the high priority of our connection to God and others. This is the significance and aim of our love. We are beings, made in God\u2019s image and after His likeness, that will, ideally, not only speak the word\u00a0love<\/em>\u00a0with greater consideration but live by its divine nature as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI love your new SUV!\u201d \u201cI love this restaurant!\u201d \u201cI love that movie\u2019s soundtrack.\u201d Countless times, I have expressed these types of sentiments. Perhaps…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[95],"class_list":["post-25074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-orthodox-wisdom","tag-relationships"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/4-3-21.jpg","views":{"total":194,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1768402153},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-6wq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25074"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25077,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074\/revisions\/25077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}