I think I may have an unhealthy obsession with thinking about the end of my life. I have always wondered what I will be known for after I die. It is one of the questions that propels me to try and live differently. And the more I read about Jesus, and the more I read the writers of the New Testament, it becomes clear that as Christians above all things, we should be known for the way we love.

In verse 7 of 1st Corinthians 13, Paul describes love this way, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." Paul sandwiches the words “believes” and “hopes” in between “bears” and “endures” and without a doubt he did so intentionally. Maybe more so than anyone else in the New Testament (excluding Jesus) Paul deeply understood what it meant to endure. In 2nd Corinthinans Paul lists his sufferings,

“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea...” and on and on he describes. Paul suffers all of this for his love of Christ and others.

Paul understood the simple truth that I am slowly learning, love is hard. It’s uncomfortable, and often painful. It frequently calls us to do things we wouldn’t normally do. It stretches and breaks us, it requires much of us, it makes us vulnerable. Love is active, it doesn’t sit apathetic, but reaches into the brokenness of our world. “Love never ends.”

The way of love is paved with messiness. To love well we must get a bit dirty. The way of love, is the way of Jesus. And the way of Jesus led him to his death. Because it was through Jesus’ death that he loved us. This is our example, a love that gives everything, that endures and bears all things, that never ends. This is our call as followers of Jesus, to live as examples of the way of love.