“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13
“I want you to become like a knight experienced in battle, who can give orders to others amid the exploding shells. In the same way, My child, you should know how to master yourself amid the greatest difficulties, and let nothing drive you away from Me, not even your falls.” Divine Mercy in my soul # 1823
A knight always keeps the faith .. a knight upholds the weak, love is the first and foremost of all knightly virtues.
Jesus teaches us many times over what that level of loves looks like. He explains through many of His stories and especially through the example of He showed in the people He encountered – both in the Bible and since.
To love my wife if huge. She is my greatest and dearest love on earth. God says to love her as He loves His church (Ephesians 5:25) – that is, to be willing to give my life that she may obtain Heaven.
The first love of any knight is God. God fully gives Himself to us and “God is Love.” 1 John 4:8. We are “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Matthew 22:37. I’ve been learning heroic love as I draw closer and give my heart more to Him. Loving God with all our heart, soul and mind, that is 110%, does not detract from our ability to love our spouse, children or family. In fact, loving God to this degree gives us the ability to love heroically.
God doesn’t just call us to love as the world loves. He demands of His followers a love that goes beyond worldly understanding. God the Father, from His pure love, sent His only Son to earth to teach us this and ultimately to die to show love to us.
God doesn’t ask us to just ‘love’ others, but He calls us to truly love as He loves. To love God fully means we are capable of loving more fully those closest to us as well as our enemies.
Christmas opens many hearts to love but Christmas is only a shadow of God’s love. It is in the example of the cross that we see heroic love perfectly demonstrated. On the cross, God showed “His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8. This is the season and NOW is the time to live a life not just of love but of heroic love.
Now is the time for heroes to rise up – will you be heroic?
“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love, abide in God, and God abides in them.” 1 John 4:8-16