IF, BECAUSE and INSPITE LOVE

When someone says "I love you" it could mean many different things. Here are three different kinds of love.

First kind of love: "IF" Love
The "IF kind of love" says, "I will love you IF you do things my way, IF you give me gifts, IF you become a good provider, IF you get a good report card at school." It is a conditional love based upon future expectations. If these conditions are not met, then like a legal contract, love is broken. This is a selfish love because it is solely based upon future expectations. It is love that must be earned. Most marriages fail because they are based upon this conditional love. Children are often heard saying, "I will be your friend" IF you let me play with your new toy; till then I hate you. Thus the IF kind of love is a fickle unstable love. This is the childish love we are all born with. It is a worldly love of natural instincts. We need to mature out of the IF kind of love!

Second kind of love: "BECAUSE" Love
The "because of" kind of love says, "I will love you BECAUSE you are now young and beautiful, BECAUSE I now desire you, BECAUSE you are now popular, BECAUSE you are now in good health or wealthy, BECAUSE I feel good when I am with you." This kind of love is common among teenagers because it is solely based upon the others current status. The BECAUSE OF kind of love is also doomed to failure in marriage. When someone proclaims, "I have fallen out of love" they have fallen out of the "because of" kind of love, not true love. This kind of love is not in tune with reality when it demands that things stay the same in an ever changing world. Like the If kind of love, it is unstable and fickle. It is full of doubts and fears for what tomorrow might bring.

Third Kind of Love: True Love: "INSPITE"LOVE
True love is the "in spite of kind of love". It says, "I love you IN SPITE OF your faults, IN SPITE OF being fat and ugly, IN SPITE OF the times you are selfish and inconsiderate, IN SPITE OF when you sin against me," True love is unconditional. It is the love that God loves us with. It is a love we don't naturally possess but must learn. It is an enduring love that doesn't even keep a score card. It will always be there tomorrow regardless of what we have done today. This is the kind of love that 50th "golden" anniversaries are made of. Romans 5:6-8 says, "For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the very good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Notice the contrast between conditional and unconditional love in this verse. Christ didn't die for us BECAUSE we were very good and worth dying for. Rather He died for us in SPITE OF the fact we were worthless sinners. Oh "to know the love of Christ which surpasses comprehension," Ephesians 3:19.

Which kind of love do you love others with?

Coffee/Coffeecups

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university lecturer. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said: "If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.

"While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress".

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other's cups." "Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change."

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

So don't let the cups drive you...enjoy the coffee instead

The trials of a teacup

I haven't always been a teacup. There was a time in my life when I was just a lump of clay. Then my Master took me and began to pat and mold and shape me. It was
very painful and I begged Him to stop, but He only smiled and said, "Not yet!"

Then He placed me on a spinning wheel and I went 'round and 'round. I got so sick I thought I wasn't going to make it, but then He finally let me off. Just as I thought I was going to be all right, my Master put me in an oven. I've never understood why He wanted to burn me; I yelled and begged for Him to stop, to let me out. I could see dimly through the glass in the oven door, but He only smiled, shook His head and
said, "Not yet!"

Finally He came and took me out. "Oh, that sure feels better," I said to myself. Then all of the sudden, my Master picked me up and started sanding and brushing
me. Then He took a paintbrush and started painting colors all over me. The fumes were so strong I thought I was going to pass out. I pleaded with Him to stop,
but He continued to smile and said, "Not yet!"
Then He placed me in another oven. This one was twice as hot as the first. I knew that I would suffocate. I begged, I pleaded, I cried, but He still only smiled
and said,"Not yet!"

I began to feel there was no hope. I would never make it. I couldn't take any more. It was all over for me. I decided to give it all up. Then the door swung open
and Master said, "Now!" He lifted me up and He placed me on a shelf to rest.
Later He came to me with a mirror and told me to look. As I looked at myself, I could not believe my eyes. I said, "Oh my, what a beautiful teacup."

Then the Master explained: "I want you to understand that I knew it hurt when I patted and molded you. I knew the spinning wheel made you sick. But if I had
left you alone, you would have dried up and always have been just a lump of clay. You would not have had any personality in your life.

"I knew it was hot when I put you in the first oven, but if I hadn't, you would just have crumbled."I knew it really bothered you to be brushed and painted, but if I hadn't, you would not have had any color in your life.

"Oh, how I knew the second oven was hard for you! But you see, if I had not put you there, you would not have been able to stand the pressures of life. Your strength would not have lasted, so you would not have survived for very long .

"So you see, when you thought it was all so very hard,I still had you in My care. I knew all along what you would be today. I had the finished product in mind
from the day I first touched you!" --Author unknown

"But now, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay,and You our potter; and all we are the work of Your hand" (Isaiah 64:8 NKJ). "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31 NKJ).

Have we become a teacup or still in the process of becoming one??