Thoughts on Love

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
 I Peter 4:8

I wanted to share something that so powerfully pierced my heart yesterday in hopes that maybe you, too, can benefit from the amazing words a friend spoke.

Read the verse above.

Pretty familiar...right? I thought so at least.

Now read it again with the emphasis on the highlighted words:

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

My friend brought this rich word from God yesterday regarding how love covers sin. We are all called to love...above all things, love..right?

Through her words, she reminded me of how in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned against God, he did not let them go exposed to the world in their shame and guilt...

He covered them...He loved them...love covers.

And in contrast, when Christ showed His ultimate love for me...for you...by dying on a cross to save our sins, he was un-covered...fully exposed to the sin and darkness of the world, so that we may be covered...

Love covers.

For me this was so simplistic, yet amazingly powerful. Through meditating on this simple semantic in God's Word the past few days, I feel I have grown to a deeper understanding of Christ's love for me.

And Christ calls us to love this way...to love in a manner so powerful that it can actually cover sin.

I know in my own life, I am inclined to do just the opposite.

Like when Jason does something I don't like or a friend or family (not to mention the people I don't like!) - my first inclination is to expose the wrongdoings...to point them out...to dramatically demonstrate how it has affected me (i.e. pouting, passive aggression, gossiping...); sometimes it's to judge; to stand back and wait for that person's sin to eat them alive so I can think "I told you so...".

But love doesn't expose sin....

Love covers sin.

Oh how I have failed at this.