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February 14th - 20th

Love – it’s more than a feeling…

The past two weeks, we have explored the different types of love, in particular, God’s love for us and the ways we show our love for Him.

The Dictionary defines love as:

1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
3.  
1. Sexual passion.
2. Sexual intercourse.
3. A love affair.
4. An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
5. A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
6. An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.
7.  
1. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language.
2. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
8. Love Mythology. Eros or Cupid.
9. often Love Christianity. Charity.
10. Sports. A zero score in tennis.

Now let’s look at the Biblical definition as found in I Corinthians 13: 1-13

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, [a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.

 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

There is quiet a difference between the world’s view on love and what God says it is.   Jesus tells us in John 15:13 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  What does that say to you about Jesus’ love for us while we were yet sinners?  We were enemies of Christ; still He willingly died for us.  He endured pain, humiliation and more importantly, separation from God for you and for me.  He laid down His life, no man too it.  I John 3:16 tell us: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we out to lay down our lives for the brethern.”  That is the meaning of love.

I thought it “ironic” that John 3:16 speaks of God’s love for us in giving His only Son, and I John 3:16 tells of Jesus who willingly laid down His life so that we could be reconciled with the Father.  Amen!

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