I’m going to be cliché today, on Valentine’s Day, and write about love. I love love, don’t you? It is the most amazing, wonderful, awesome and marvelous thing (is it a thing?) in the world.
I think it is also one of the most misunderstood and misconceived things in the world.
Love is one of the most innately human characteristics on the planet. We don’t have to be taught to love, like we don’t have to be taught to breathe.
We love our children; we love our spouses or significant others; we love our pets; we love pizza and chocolate (ok, I do); we love our parents and other family members; we love our friends, and we love so many things about life – traveling, reading, shopping, lazy Sundays, swimming in the ocean, climbing a mountain, flying a plane, and so much more.
Love is easy.
Or is it?
There are so many places I could go with this, but I want to keep it short and simple.
#1. – God is love.
How amazing is that? God – the One who created the world, the One who created the Universe, the One who created me and you – He is love. Not, He personifies love, or exhibits love, or is very loving. God is love. That is what He is.
#2. – God loves you.
Yes, you. And everyone who has ever been on this planet, is on this planet, or will be on this planet in the future. He loves us all. Every. Single. One. Of. Us.
#3. – He tells us to love one another.
Here’s where it can get a little sticky. This is a command, not a suggestion. We are to love one another. In fact, the Bible tells us that the greatest commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself”. Here’s a sticky (as in ooey-gooey mushy) aside – I love it when my honey calls me “neighbor”! I know he loves me when he says that.
We are to love one another as we love ourselves. Setting aside the obvious – that we have to first love ourselves to be able to do this – that’s a pretty big order, especially if you think of love in the way this “holiday” exhibits it – all cards and flowers and boxes of chocolates and kisses and other mushy stuff.
But that is not really what love is about. I believe love is actually an action and not a fuzzy feeling. I believe that because that is what the Bible tells us.
1 Corinthians 13, says “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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. Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Now I can’t think of another thing to say! That says it all!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Love your loved ones.
And your neighbor.
And let God love you.
Because He does.
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