Love Suffereth Long

Love “suffereth long”* (1 Corinthians 13:4) (bears hard things for a long time). How long? Jesus gave us an example of longsuffering love. He could easily have refused to die on the cross for us. He said that He could have called down angels from heaven to take Him from the cross. Why did He die for us? It was because He had love in His heart for us—longsuffering love.

When others aren’t kind to us and hit us or say bad things about us it is hard to love them, isn’t it? But Jesus calls us to follow Him, to be like Him, to act like He did. People were not kind to Jesus. They said awful things to Him, they spit on Him and laughed at Him. When Jesus was dying on the cross they said that if He was God’s Son, He should come down from the cross. Even Jesus’ friends all left Him. What did Jesus do? Did He say mean things back? Did He feel sorry for Himself? Did He feel angry? No. Before He died, Jesus prayed to His Father in Heaven, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”* (Luke 23:34) He forgave them. Doesn’t that seem like a very hard thing to do?

Jesus calls us to take up our cross every day and follow Him. What is our cross? It is the things that are very hard to bear. Jesus doesn’t ask us to do something that is impossible. If we ask Him for help, He will help us to do the hard things. He will help us to forgive others even when it is very hard to. He will help us to have His love that suffers long in our hearts. If we try by ourselves it won’t work. We must ask Jesus to help us. Jesus says that if we don’t forgive other people from our hearts, He won’t forgive us. If we don’t love others, we aren’t loving God, because He loves everyone.

All of us are born with black, bad hearts. Everyone, after Adam and Eve, is born with sin in their lives. Everyone except Jesus. We can’t go to heaven if we have bad hearts. We must be truly sorry for the bad thoughts we have had and all the wrong things we have done. We must ask Jesus to forgive us before we can get to heaven. If we do these things, Jesus has promised to change our hearts and give us clean white ones. He loves us and wants us all to go to be with Him in heaven.

Ask Jesus now for a clean heart. He won’t turn you away. Jesus wants to clean our hearts up and give us good things. He will give you His peace and happiness which no one can take away. Ask Him now to forgive your sins and give you a clean heart. You will know when He has answered. He will give you so much happiness and joy. Ask Jesus now. He answered me and gave me a clean heart, and I know that He has it for you, too.