Charity = Christ's Love

So many times I have heard that charity is the pure love of Christ that it has become second nature to equate charity with the Love of Christ.  I love the idea of charity as the pure love of Christ, but it feels too abstract and unreachable.  In my new testament class we have this taught to us in a different way.  My teacher told us that true charity has only been seen once on this earth, and that was when Christ was here.  We read in 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 where it says:

 "4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;  6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;"

My teacher told us to replace "charity" with "Christ".  A little show of this would be "Christ suffereth long, and is kind...."   This is SO applicable.  We are striving to become more like Christ and if we act in the way that he does, we will be cultivating charity.  Also, since only Christ has shown true charity, my teacher described it in this way: we are not giving charity, we are reflecting the charity that Christ has given to us. We all should try to reflect a little more of the love that Christ has given to us by being long suffering and kind.  I hope that through my actions, I can share Christ's love with everyone around me.  We all can be a little more loving and kind.  Lets let our actions do that, but also remember that as my teacher put it, "charity isn't what we do, it's who we are."