Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.  God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?  James 4:11-12

Note on verses 11, 12

Jesus summarized the law as love for God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40), and Paul said that love demonstrated toward a neighbor would fully satisfy the law (Romans 13:6-10).  When we fail to love, we are actually breaking God’s law.  Examine your attitude and actions toward others.  Do you build people up or tear them down?  When you’re ready to criticize someone, remember God’s law of love and say something good instead.  Saying something beneficial to others will cure you of finding fault and increase your ability to obey God’s law of love.

If I could simply love like Jesus loves, then I wouldn’t have hardly any problems or issues.  Perfect love keeps us from being judgmental, yet we still see clearly.  When we love someone, even in the secular world, we tend to overlook faults, indiscrepancies and irritations.  Love does no wrong and so, when we first fall in love with someone, we don’t see all those odd behaviors or irritants, instead, we look the other way or deny any such behavior. 

When we love someone with a Spirit-filled love, then we don’t look the other way when the one we love is sinning or falling into temptation, but where we fail is in handling the situation - or at least, where I fail.  Instead of building up and pointing to Christ, at least for myself, I tend to find more fault and throw it in their face that they aren’t doing ‘right.’  (As if I have any room to judge.) 

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.  1 Peter 4:8

I know that when I exercise the emotion and actions of pure love, I find people easier to get along with.  I don’t find fault and overlook certain discontinuities.  But to practice love in such a way as to build someone up instead of tearing them down, I’m still learning to do. 

Case in point, my husband.  Our relationship started off rocky, on the wrong foot and backwards.  Things got considerably worse before they ever started the eternally slow progress back up.  My husband didn’t really love me at first, but has over time come to “not being able to live without me.”  (That is his statement, not mine.)  At first, I had to look perfect, I had to change my hair, my look, the patterns on my dresses, my shoes, my speech, the way I looked at people, at him and so on.  There wasn’t anything that was me, it was all fake.  Over time, one by one, these things eased and now, I am more or less, who I was to begin with and don’t have to do all these outward things to make him happy.  (I do try to keep myself appealing to him, don’t get me wrong.)

His love was all outwardly.  Nothing mattered from the inside, in fact, he very emphatically detested the “who” part of who I was and only wanted the outward shell of who I was.  (And I hated that on so many levels.)  On the other side, though I’m partial, I have always liked the way my husband looked, but if he wanted to look scruffy or shave his head or grow a beard or anything, it didn’t matter to me.  His outward appearance didn’t have a huge impact on me or how I thought of him.  But, the things that did matter to me was what was in his heart. 

He has a great desire to give off the best impression of having a great life, a wonderful, beautiful wife and the best, well-mannered children.  Yet, inner beauty seems to be almost non-existent as an important quality/characteristic to have. 

The inner man.  That is what it boils down to.  Now-a-days, I have a hard time allowing God’s love to permeate through my aching, trampled heart to overlook all of his indiscrepancies, idiosyncrasies and irritations.  Yet, that I must do because that is what God calls me to do.  Jesus rightly said, all the law is summed up in love.  First, love God, then love your neighbor. 

Just as we studied in James 2, it is more than just having the head knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the doing of it that separates us from the world and sinful people.  (James 2:19)  If I know these things, and then don’t do them, then I am no better than any other hypocrite out there.  Paul said we could do all things, and good things at that, but without love, we are nothing.  (1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter)  To me, that is what the scriptures are all about, that is what God IS. 

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.  But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.  1 John 4:7-9

Do I strive to be more like Christ?  In other words, do I strive to be more loving?  God is love, Jesus is love.  Am I love?  I’m afraid that I fail in this.  I am bitter, angry and vengeful on my good days.  These verses really put me in my place, “anyone who does not love does not know God.”  I must learn to love, at all costs because the next verse says that is how we know how much God loves us, because at all costs, the cost of his very own son, He showed us His love.  What is my cost to show love?  Laying down of self - anger, pain, injustice, wants, desires, hopes, etc.  If that is what it takes to show God’s spirit-filled love within me, then I should have a desire to do whatever it takes to show that love, to my husband, to my friends and to perfect strangers. 

That is my goal.  That is my hope - to be more like Jesus.  And with God’s help, I will reach that hope and so will each of His children that sincerely seek His face.  Being filled with God’s love means that I will not be filled with a judgmental, critical heart towards others.  I’ll say it again, God’s love is the cure for my judgmental and critical spirit.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.  Psalm 139:23-24

May God provide the increase.