By: Steve Wilmot
Of the four descriptions of love found in 1 Corinthians 13.7, perseverance is probably the hardest to do. Your love for someone will be tested. People you love will let you down.
Everyone who has ever been in love has experienced this reality at some point in their relationship with someone — spouse, parent, friend. We need look no further than the divorce rate or the number of children estranged from their parents.
But persevering love endures. It sticks around. It never gives up, no matter what happens or how bad the relationship gets. It always hopes damaged relationships can be restored.
Persevering love doesn’t walk away, write off a person, or keep a mental list of grievances. It never says, “I’m done with you, you crossed the line, you’ve disappointed me too many times, I’m outta here.” A love that perseveres always loves other people.
Love is an action. You do the loving thing whether you feel like it or not — especially when you don’t. Every description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 is an active verb. Love acts. God shows us what persevering love looks like.
Adam and Eve disobeyed him, but he didn’t withdraw his love from them. The inhabitants of the earth became corrupt and violent, so God destroyed them in a worldwide flood. But he didn’t give up on mankind — based on his persevering love, he told Noah to build an ark and said anyone who boarded it would live.
Centuries later, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob refused to do what God commanded them to do day after day for years under the leadership of Moses.
They griped and complained incessantly about everything and refused to enter the Promised Land. Yet God never stopped loving them.
During the time of the judges, Israel rebelled against God and became slaves to a variety of nations who treated them so badly they cried out to the God they’d rejected for deliverance. In his persevering love, God delivered them every time, even though he knew they’d repeat the cycle again a few years later.
God constantly told his people, “You can withdraw your love from me, but I’ll never withdraw my love from you.” And he never did. He will never withdraw his love from you either.
Even at your worst, God loves you. Even when you disappoint him, he still loves you. Even when you break your promises to him… again, his love for you endures. There is nothing you can do to make God stop loving you. Nothing.
That’s the message of Romans 8.35-38 — nothing can separate us from the love of God. Kathryn Scott composed “I Belong” to reinforce that message in Romans 8.
Not angels nor demons
No power on earth or Heaven
Not distance nor danger
No trouble now or ever
Nothing can take me from Your great love
Forever this truth remains
I belong
I belong to You
Not hardship nor hunger
No pain or depth of sorrow
Not weakness nor failure
No broken dream or promise
Forever this truth remains
I belong
I belong to You
The great preacher of old, Charles Spurgeon observed, “By perseverance the snail reached the Ark.”
Try to imagine what a feat that was. The snail must have doubted he’d ever get there in time. All the obstacles in his way to climb over or crawl around. Yet he kept going, refusing to give up. And because he persevered, he reached the Ark.
Persevering love is like that. When someone you love rarely loves you back in the ways 1 Corinthians 13 describes love, it’s logical to believe your relationship will never mend and return to the way it once was.
In those moments, remember the snail. Keep loving even when you see no change in him. You love. Let God work on the other person’s heart.
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Steve Wilmot is a former Edgerton, Ohio area pastor who now seeks “to still bear fruit in old age” through writing. He is the author of seven books designed to assist believers to make steady progress on their spiritual journey.