There's More To Love Than You Think

Is this what love is?

I think the picture above would probably sell on a Hallmark card.  Even though it is Scriptural, it embodies what the world wants to believe about love, or at least what the world has been led to believe about love. We like 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 because there Paul talks about the "feel-good" parts of love. The "happily ever after" parts of love.

It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy. We like that.

That isn't the whole story.

The Bible has a lot to say about love.

I Corinthians 13 is known as the "Love Chapter," and indeed Paul says a lot about love there. Love is patient and kind. Love does not boast or envy. Love always protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres. Yes, love is and does those things.

However, I Corinthians 13 is not the only place the Bible mentions love. According to I John 4:8, God is love. The Bible is God's Word. We can assume then, since God is love, His Word would be filled with comments, descriptions, and stories about love. Indeed it is.

According to Psalm 94:12, Revelation 3:19, and Proverbs 3:12, God the Father and God the Son discipline those they love. Love is discipline? I've never seen that on a Hallmark card! How about Jesus' command to love your enemies (Mattheww 5:44), or His insistence that love demands obedience (John 14:15)?

The Bible is full of truth about love that you'll never see in the card aisle. Love of money. Love of evil. Love of the world. Love of sin.

We're going to learn more about love than most of us ever wanted to know.

In preparation for that day of red roses and chocolates, let's learn what love really is, according to God's Word. Celebrating Valentine's Day with those who love you is easy--so easy even the world does that, just as Jesus said (Luke 6:32).

I don't want to be like the world. I want to be like Christ. I want to love according to what God says love is. Going back to 1 Corinthians 13, Paul talks about how when he was a child, he talked like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child, but when he became a man, he put childish ways behind him. That's in the same chapter as all that talk about love. I want to know what he meant.

Don't you?