Love?

Love?

Like most people, I’m going to start with a question. So here goes… What is love? Is this not the same question many a teary teenage girl has inquired of her mother or many a discerning philosopher has contemplated with his peers? I would venture to say no. See, to ask the question we have to find out what love we are talking about. Am I talking about the sappy, Hollywood type of ‘love’? – No, or maybe, ‘Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee, and when I love thee not, chaos is come again’- that idealistic Shakespeare love. - Again I must say no. The love I’m talking about is true love, the absolute type- pure and refined. To dig deeper we have to go straight to scripture. So deep breath and here goes, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ ‘Love your enemies’ ‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The list goes on…  All these scriptures tell us what to love, not necessarily what love is, these are evidences of love much like helping your mother in the kitchen or giving someone a hug, these are not love but the fruit of love, and then we find it! The scripture verse that tells us what love truly is- 1 Corinthians 13: 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; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. This is what love is. But to truly understand love, we have to know where love is from. It can only be from Love itself, that’s Love with a capital ‘L’. God is love. This phrase may only be three words, but three words that are fundamental to the enormity of what love is. You see, for something to exist, something has to first be it. To have love, God first had to be love.

 ‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ You see, we can only love because God first loved us first. Love only exists because God is Love. Amen? The amazing thing about this is he is, was and always will be love. Faith, trust, hope and other virtues will not exist in Heaven, Why?  Because they will be fulfilled at the coming of Jesus! Think about it, why would we need to hope or faith in Heaven. They just won’t be necessary, but love will be. God isn’t faith, He isn’t hope, but He is love and because God is love, if we want to be with him we have to have love both on Heaven and Earth. Love is a divine virtue; this means we are going spend all of eternity in true love. No more disappointments, no more envy, pride, selfishness or things that get in the way of us and God, an eternity completely fulfilling God’s purpose for life- to glorify Him. Someone recently said Heaven was like strawberry cake but a thousand times better! If that’s the case, we certainly have something to look forward to!

There are many examples of love in the Bible, but to find the deepest kind of love we have to go straight to the crucifixion.  What type of love was this? This love is sweat turns to blood, friends fleeing, healing enemies, ridicule, mocking soldiers, unjust circumstances, unbearable pain sweeping through body. Cruel, cold nails. Glass, metal, rope whipping through skin piercing even the deepest nerve, false accusations, crown of thorns, psychological torment, spiritual pounding, physical torture. Calvary’s cruel glare, condemning cross, confessing criminals, utter forgiveness, obedience to death, undeniable courage, unforgettable peace, liberating life, denying death, releasing captivity and pursuing freedom, bleeding body, suffering saviour, Head raised with a death-defying shout of ,’IT IS FINISHED.’ Death overcome, curtain split in two and victory is won. All for us, laid out for you. Jesus, our living sacrifice. My friends, this is love.