What is Love?

What is Love?

 

What is love? That's a great question, because we can find so many examples of what isn't love. Revenge, murder, hatred, anger, bitterness, stubbornness, selfishness, etc., are all examples of what is not love. A truly loving person may be tempted to fall into some of these sins, but if they truly love, peace and joy will win over their hearts and love will be victorious. Remember that I John tells us:

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

If we truly live "through" Him, we will do as He did and the desire to sacrifice ourselves for those we love will live in us. We will be able to forgive those that we love and give them gifts out of the goodness that is within us. That may be just gifts of kindness, and our time. We may not be able to "spend" a lot of money on things that we can't afford to make them happy, but those things are not nearly as important as the gifts of the heart. I Corinthians 13 is commonly known as the LOVE chapter of the Bible. Let's see what it tells us about LOVE.

 

1 Corinthians 13

New International Version (NIV)

13 If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
⁸ 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. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ 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. ¹² 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.
¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

There is no greater accomplishment in life than to live in true love. No great contribution to the poor or to the world (such as a Library, museum, statue, etc.) will ever last as long or be as valuable as true love. That is why Satan will do whatever he can to stop it and destroy it. It is the greatest weapon that a Believer has in his spiritual armory. The greatest spiritual triumphs in history have been borne of love and compassion.

So whatever you do in your life, if it is founded in and on the foundation of love, it will stand long and strong. If it is not, it will eventually fail and fade away. We are truly made complete in and by love.