| | Love is selfless. Love says, what can I do for you? Not, what have you done for me. Love says, how have I failed to love you? Not, how have you failed to love me. Love seeks to serve, not to be served. Love is not "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine". Love is not passive, but actively pursues. Love does not seek its own glory or wellbeing, but the wellbeing of others. Love gives everything, and expects nothing in return. If but one spouse in a strained marriage would pursue love as outlined to us, many marital relations would be spared. Love is not about the lover, it is about the loved. Love suffers long, and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil. 1 Cor 13: 4, 5 NKJV Love is not the sum of its parts. Love is not affection; it is not tender care; it is not a passionate feeling; it is not being in love; it is not liking another person, or enjoying their presence; it is not a partnership. Love may and often will exude all these things, but these things are not love. They are evidence of love, but not proof. If you were on trial for loving your spouse, your child, your friend, your parents, or most importantly, your Savior, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. 1 Peter 3: 8, 9 NKJV Love is a universal language. It is greater than words; it is greater than deeds. It communicates where nothing else can. It softens hard hearts, and tears down stone walls. Without it, the greatest intentions are futile, and best laid plans fail. One cannot win over a person, or a people, if love is not shown. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 1 Cor 13: 1 NKJV My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3: 18 NKJV Love benefits the heart of the lover. It brings joy, peace, satisfaction. It brings fulfillment. We were created for love, both to give and to receive, and without it, we are empty, we are hollow. Without love, though we gain the world, we accomplish nothing. Though we strive for success, for riches, for affection, for pleasures, for beauty, for glory, for fame, for good works or for evil, without love, we accomplish nothing. Though we sacrifice all, if not in love, it is vanity, and vanity is not love, but lust, and shall perish, and love is everlasting. 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. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 1 Cor 13: 2 NKJV Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him. For all that is in the world -- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life -- is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2: 15-17 NKJV Love is everlasting. God is love; love is God. There cannot be love without God, nor can you have God without love. God is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega; God is eternal. So, thus, is love. God loves us, and seeks a relationship of love with us. But love cannot be forced, cannot be coerced, cannot be bought, or it would not be love. He has extended His perfect love toward us, for He is love. It is up to us only to accept. If we go through life refusing to love He who first loved us, we will not be forced to love Him in eternity, and will be eternally separated from His love. This is the divide between heaven and hell: God dwells in heaven, with love; hell has no love, for it has not God. Love never fails. 1 Cor 13: 8a Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3: 1a NKJV Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifest toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4: 7-11 NKJV As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man, that to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointeed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. John 15: 9-17 NKJV See also Romans 12: 9-21, 13:8-10; Galatians 5: 7-26; Ephesians 5: 1-5; Colossians 3: 12-17; Hebrews 13: 1-6; John 3: 16-21; Matthew 5: 43-48 |
