The word love gets thrown around like a leaf on a windy fall day. It is used to describe almost everything for which we have a desire. It describes our food preferences, our clothing, our cars, and then the people we care about. The word itself has lost its meaning. We need to redefine what love is based on the creator of love. The creator of everything also created love. I John 4:8 teaches us that God is love. It also teaches us that if we do not love we don’t know God.
I John 4:8 “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
The true embodiment of love is God. Therefore, if we want to know if what we are feeling is love, we need to test ourselves against the nature of love, that He set forth to define real love.
In I Corinthians 13 we have a long list of the nature of love. The best way to define a feeling is to look at the evidence of how it is displayed to others.
In I Corinthians 13:4 we see that charity, love, is long-suffering. God shows this quality every day as He withholds his judgment from the earth. He is giving man ample opportunity to repent and chose Him as their God.
He is kind, the Greek word means to show oneself useful by acting benevolently. In Luke 6:35 he shows kindness to the unthankful and those who are evil. He showed kindness and long-suffering to those in Noah’s day by giving them around 120 years to repent before he judged the earth. God is also not envious or prideful, there is nothing anyone or anything has that He wants or needs. As we find our sufficiency in Christ, we have no reason to be envious of another. We also have no reason to be boastful or proud. Everything we are, and everything we have, is only because of God’s grace. I get very upset when I hear Christians constantly telling their kids how proud they are of them. Don’t they realize pride is a sin. We don’t need to encourage pride we need to understand pride is within all of us, and it causes us to be puffed up. Pride fights against love.
I Corinthians 13:4 “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,”
When we have the love of God, we will not promote our own way. We will be concerned about others and what is best for them. God was the perfect example of this kind of love. He gave His only Son to pay the penalty for our sins. His holiness would not allow sin in His presence. If we were to be allowed into Heaven, someone had to pay the penalty for those sins. Jesus, His only son, was the only one qualified to pay that price. This was a sacrificial love, a serving love, and an example of the kind of love we are to have for others.
I Corinthians 13:5-7 “Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
Are you easily provoked, irritable, or resentful? Do you like it when those who have done wrong suffer for their wrongdoing or does your heart break because people are deceived and without God? Do you continue to love when others treat you wrong? These are hard questions and we need to stop and answer them often if we want to love as God loves.
Are you willing to go the extra mile to bless someone knowing you may suffer rejection? That’s what God does every second of every day. He is patiently waiting, continuing to bless those who don’t know Him and those who know Him, but allow other things to come between them.
If you want to know real love get to know God. Look at how he treats us, to know how to treat others. His love never fails. God is love.
I Corinthians 13:8 “Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”
