What ABOUT Love?

"Love is patient..."

1 Corinthians 13:4a

 

As this is Valentine's Week, I thought we might take a peek at what Love really is.  Love is a viewed in so many different ways that it can be confusing at times.  I have even been asked if love is real.  And, believe it or not, there are those who use "love" as a weapon.  

 

But let's start with this: LOVE IS PATIENT.  Patient!  That's something we seem to be running low on these days.  Tell you what, go outside and bury a seed.  Any seed will do.  Then stand back and see if it JUMPS out of the ground showering you with dirt clods.  What do you mean "It didn't"?  AHHHH.....it takes patience for the plant to grow (ask any farmer).  You see, love is like that too.  It must have time to grow, but it also must be able to endure.  Love is not a fleeting encounter.  Love is becoming part of someone else.  Joining their life with yours and your life with theirs.  That takes time.  That takes patience.  That takes endurance.

If you cut and run at the first disagreement, it's not love.  Love is when you choose to stand with someone else regardless what comes your way.  Are we willing to do that?  Or do we believe THAT takes too much time, energy and effort?

We tend to throw "Love" around like a hot potato (which I do enjoy hot potatoes with cheese, butter and bacon bits).  But the truth of the matter is LOVE is patiently enduring so it will last!

 

There it is!  Love is not passive.  Love is action.  And, (are you sitting down for this?) actions are always the result of a decision.  Therefore, (and I know this is getting a bit out of the norm), LOVE in its truest form is a DECISION!!

 

 

What A Valentine!

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

 

Today's passage is very familiar.  In fact, it's so familiar that most of us can recite it without having any real idea what we are saying (because we learned it by rote years ago).  

 

Valentine's Day just passed.  I hope you got a Valentine or two, and I hope you gave a Valentine or two.  Valentine's Day is the holiday designated to express love for those we truly care about.  And the Greeting Card companies, Candy Companies, Jewelry Merchants, Stuffed Animal Sellers, and all the other corporations seeking to profit from love, spare no expense trying to get (or guilt) all sorts of material goods that are supposed to "express what's in your heart."  Yet, none of them have been able to capture (or even mention) the greatest Valentine's Gift of all....Jesus Christ!

 

Think about it:  God didn't have to create anything, but He did.   God didn't have to give us anything, yet He has given us everything.  God didn't have to provide a way to rescue us from ourselves, yet He did.  God provided the perfect gift for imperfect people in the form of His Son.  

 

Jesus, who did not sin, accepted ALL of our sin and paid the required price to purchase our freedom for eternity.  This is the Valentine's Gift God offers.  And the only "catch" is that we have to accept His gift.