For most of my professional life I have often been told that I’m not approachable. You see, when it comes to things like Meyers-Briggs (ENTJ) or Strength Finders, my profile comes out as, “Jerk.”

When I served with a campus ministry I would often have to spend a great deal of time apologizing to the women with whom I worked alongside. It usually wasn’t anything that I particularly did. Yet, there was something there that created tension and caused some sort of break in our relationship.

After leaving the campus ministry I continued to work through this area of my life. What God began to reveal to me was that I was not “putting on love.”

I am very much truth oriented. My preference is for people to play it straight and give me the facts. I don’t like it when people beat around the bush. I don’t sugar coat anything. In many conversations I would simply drop the truth bomb, “it’s biblical, that’s why.” Which is the pastor’s version of the great parental saying, “Because I said so!”

I was not very loving. I missed out on half of the command from Paul in Ephesians 4:

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

No, I simply heard, “…speaking the truth…” and missed the love piece. In Colossians 3, Paul writes,

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

He reminds us that we must “put on love” above all else. We can do this only as we understand who we are in Christ. We can love well when we know that we are chosen, holy, and beloved. When we are confident in the love that the Father has for us through Christ then we can love well.

As we love well we will discover that it “binds everything together in perfect harmony.” What is this everything? It all that comes before! Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. All these work together in perfect harmony when we first put on love.

Will you put on love today?

About the Author
Daniel Rose is a husband, dad, and pastor of The Antioch Movement in Ypsilanti, MI. He writes at The Subversive Journey and you can can connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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from The Subversive Journey https://danielmrose.com/put-on-love-3f5935ccfb51?source=rss—-bbc765b79ec5—4

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