STRIVE TO LOVE LIKE CHRIST

Love means so much to me and I so want to be known for it. Not only do I want to be known for loving others in a Christlike manner, I would also like everyone especially those that claim to be Christians to strive to love like Christ did as well.
Loving others should not be a Sunday only event but it should be our daily lifestyle.
We should love everywhere and everyone. We should demonstrate love in our business dealings, at work, in our homes, in church, etc.
Love is tough because it exposes our weaknesses and stretches us in so many ways. Margaret Walker says "Love stretches your heart and makes you big inside."
Love is selfless, it puts others first. Robert Heinlein in "Stranger in a Strange Land" said Love is. . . "That condition whereby the happiness of another is essential to your own."
I desire to love like Christ but I know I often fall short of His standards and I constantly ask myself the question “what is love?”; I went digging and here are some of the answers I got.
 Love is a strong positive emotion of regard and affection – Google
 As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. - Wikipedia
 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NIV
 Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love. - St. Bernard 1090-1153, French Theologian and Reformer
 Love is "The willful intent to serve the well being of another." - M. Scott Peck
 Love is seeing an imperfect person perfectly. - Sam Keen
 Love is the ability and willingness to allow those you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you. - Leo Buscaglia
 Love is friendship set on fire. - Jeremy Taylor
 "Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale... Love loves; this is its nature." - Howard Thurman
 "Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." - Peter Ustinov
 Logic says everything in this world has a cause and an effect. True Love is the only feeling which is its own cause and its own effect. It is something illogical and yet above all logic. I Love her because I Love her, and I Love her so I Love her. - Prateek Kumar Singh
 Love is loving someone without expecting anything in return; no judgments, no restrictions; no limitations; no expectations! Love is expressed when you are being someone who loves someone for who they are, not who you think they should be. True love has a foundation of integrity, respect, faith and trust. Love is the force that brings about unity and harmony. – Larry James, Celebratelove.com
No matter the answers I get there is one thing I know from the experience of countless ‘lovers’ like me. Love is a decision. You have to decide to love regardless of what the other person does. This decision makes you look like a fool because you keep on loving those who act otherwise to you.
I have experienced hurt and pain, I have experienced situations where I have been cheated but my decision to keep on loving has kept me going. I have an idea of what Jesus was thinking when he said “forgive them for they know not what they are doing”. It hurts but I leave it in the hand of my father who sees and knows it all.
Love puts you on the path that pleases God so, do not stop loving. Remember, "In the final analysis, love is the only reflection of man's worth." - Bill Wundram, Iowa Quad Cities Times