True Love

February is the month we celebrate love. However, it’s not the only month we are called to love. No, we are called by God to love each day of the year. If you enter almost any store in February, you will see reminders of your "need" to tell that special someone that you love them. Everywhere we look there are commercials for ways to express your love to others informing (reminding!) you to illustrate your love through flowers, cards, and candy. But is this what true love is all about? Is true love expressed by a simple card or a warm hug? Not entirely. Though these are important byproducts of love, none are specific indications of how much we love another. Where do we look to find out the definition of true love? I’m glad you asked…

Let’s begin by briefly examining examples of love in Scripture. Then, we can grasp what true love is…and what true love is not. True love can be described as Jesus’ love for the world. Romans 5:8 is helpful here. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ is at the epicenter of love. Jesus loved the world enough not just to die for the "good" people, but to die for all sinners, as well. As we think about John 3:16, we are reminded Christ died for all mankind because He loved us. Intrinsically, we had nothing to offer. Jesus offered up His life as a reminder of  the definition of true love. Christ continues to define true love in in John 15:13 - “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” God definition of love certainly is different from mankind’s definition today!

Paul defines love as the greatest gift we could ever receive. In Paul’s scathing letter to the Corinthian Church, he informs the church how God loves. Read this chapter for yourselves. Please note how love is calculated - “And now, abide faith, hope, than these: but the greatest of these is love.” Did you catch that? God’s love exceeds “grace” and “hope.” It is more important! As Believers, we must love with Christ’s love and give sacrificially to all.

You say, “Yeah, that was John and Paul, but did Jesus love like that?” Yes, He did. John 13:35 informs, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Furthermore, John describes it as thus: “We love because Christ loved us first” (1 John 4:19). Jesus laid down His life to fully illustrate the bonds of true love. Furthermore, you might argue, “This is what Jesus said, but what about all the killing in the Old Testament. Was this illustrating God’s love to us?” No, killing (the absence of love) was originally never a part of God’s plan for mankind. Yet in Zephaniah 3:17 we read of God’s ultimate plan for the beginning of time, “The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” God’s love, if appropriated correctly, will calmly wrap its arms around us and won’t let go!

But let’s go back to 1 John, God’s expression and descriptions of love. In one of the greatest reminders of God’s love to us, John writes, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God” (1 John 3:1). Did you catch that? God demonstrates (proves) His love towards us in that He invites us to become His children! For those who never had an earthly father, God says, in other words, “I (emphasis) will take his place!” We must love one another because God loved us first when we were sinners and worthless. This means we would be thieves to hold God’s love within ourselves. Again, John reminds us, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves if born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:6). What does this mean? The lost cannot truly love because they have not embraced the One who truly loves them. Love to others gives expression to a lost world of what Christ had done in us. John further writes, “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8).

In the Old Testament, Jeremiah 31:3 stares, “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love.’ ” Wow! God’s love will never, even end? David echoes his description of God’s love in Psalm 86:5, “But You, O Lord are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.” May we, this Valentine’s Day, love others as God has loved us.