Devotional Thoughts | Love Pt. 1

Love Is...

February is now here. Of course, when we think of February we also think of Valentine’s day, a day when romantic love walks onto center stage and is given full expression. Cards, love letters, poems, gifts of flowers, candy, intimate wear, will be given over fine meals, soft candlelight and music, passing from heart to hand as we celebrate “love.”

But in the midst of this hubbub, we need to know what we are celebrating? What is love? For most people it will be the celebration of a feeling. A good feeling, a warm fuzzy sentimental feeling that is elusive, difficult to find, and impossible to hold. At least that is what we are told, and if that feeling passes, oh well, we again begin the pursuit of love. 

I’m convinced many people are hurting today because they have given this thing called love a whirl and have been hurt, even devastated by it. Today these people are as jaded or cynical about love as Ebenezer Scrooge was about Christmas. 

I believe this is due to the poverty of the English language when it comes to “Love.” We use the same word to express our feelings about many things. This leads to confusion and misunderstanding.

 Eros – sexual love, passion

Storge – love of kin

Philio – love of friends, brotherly love

Agapeo – love which seeks the highest good of another regardless of the personal cost. It is the highest expression of love. God’s love.

I believe when we make the highest expression of love our goal, then we excel in every area of love.

Finish this phrase with an adjective, Love is… (You cannot use the obvious answers of 1 Corinthians 13)

Intentional

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  [NKJV]

It is a decision, a choice.

Sacrificial

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.  [NKJV]

1 John 3:16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.  [NKJV]

Love gives and does not count the cost to be too great. If you are working an “angle” it isn’t love.

Unconditional

1 John 4:9-11 God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into this wicked world to bring to us eternal life through his death. 10In this act we see what real love is: it is not our love for God but his love for us when he sent his Son to satisfy God's anger against our sins.

11Dear friends, since God loved us as much as that, we surely ought to love each other too.  [Living]

Love isn’t based on performance, appearance.

Inseparable

Romans 8:35-39

Who then can ever keep Christ's love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn't love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us?

36No, for the Scriptures tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day--we are like sheep awaiting slaughter; 37but despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us. 38For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels won't, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God's love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, 39or where we are--high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean--nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.  [Living]

Looking at this list of life events, what can separate love.