Wednesday, September 18, 2013

What is love?

Love is a very complex concept.
 
For most of my life I believed that love was a feeling, an emotion.  That feeling of adoration of another person or thing.  That ooey, gooey feeling you get when you really care about someone.  Love for a child, a spouse, or friends.  But as I began to grow in my relationship with the Lord, I learned that love is not just an emotion, but that it is actually much more than that.  Love is an action word.  Love is shown through our actions toward one another.  John authored some of the most profound scripture concerning love:
 
John 13:34 KJV A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
 
When is the last time we as followers of Christ one-anothered one-another!  God sent us the perfect example to follow...Jesus, His Son.
 
John 13:35 KJV By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
 
  John 15:12 KJV This is my commandment that ye love one another, as I have loved you.
 
John 15:17 KVJ These things I command you, that ye love one another.
 
 
Love is a fruit of the Spirit, as found in Galations 5:22,23 KJV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.  Fruit is the evidence of your relationship with God.  Your fruit will reflect the true status of your commune with God.  So let's do a little self-examination...  How much fruit am I bearing?  Be honest with yourself, because God already knows the truth!

 
The bible further describes the meaning of love in 2 Corinthians chapter 13:
 

 
Again, to reiterate, LOVE is evidence of your relationship with God.  The characteristics as noted in the photo above will be quite evident in how you handle your daily life encounters. 
 

Recently, God began to deal with me concerning the topic of love.  I knew that He was trying to tell me that LOVE is multi-faceted.  He revealed that it is an emotion and an action, but I still felt that He was trying to tell me that there was more.  Then finally, I got it.  He gave me the true meaning of love.  He gave me the answer I had been searching for!  GOD IS LOVE!  AMEN!!!  How much more complex can you be?  Yet the answer is so simple. 
 
God is love.  God IS love, the most pure love that you have ever known.  And, for some of you, the purest love you have yet to know.  Do you KNOW God? or do you just know about Him?  If you do, then you have experienced love in it's purest form.  If you don't know Him, you can.  Oh taste and see that the Lord is good, AMEN!  You CAN know Him right now!  Surrender yourself completely to Him right now.  Maybe you haven't experienced that love in a while.  He hasn't left you, He's right here with you right now as you are reading the words on this screen.  Open yourself up to Him and he will be everything you will ever need or hope or desire.
 
Jesus wept, he felt emotion.  God's greatest demonstration of love was sending His son to die for the propitiation of our sins.  Now THAT is an action of love.  And finally, the most beautiful facet of love is found in 1 John 4:8 KJV He that love not knoweth not God; for God is love.