What is Love?

What is love? I am sure if you walked up to random people on the street and asked them that question you would get some pretty strange answers. Love, is a strong affection for another rising from kinship of close personal ties. It also means to cherish and hold dear. Today the word is used so flippantly. I love that person. I love doing this or that. I love getting out of school for the summer. The Bible in John 15:13 says this, Greater LOVE hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Wow. Would you be willing to die for the things and people you love?
Next time you say, I love you, think. Would you be willing to lay down your life for that person? That is true love. 1 Corinthians 13 commonly dubbed the "Love Chapter" gives us a detailed description of what love is.

1 Corinthians 13

The Greatest Gift

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;

5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Is this the kind of love that you talk about in your every day life? This is true love. This is what God intended love to be. We view love as word such as like. We can even use the two interchangelbly. I love ice cream or I like ice cream. I admit that it is a kind of lame example. Who would die for ice cream? But next time you say you love something look at the context you use it in.

God shows us an example of the love we are supposed to experience in our everyday life, in Romans 8:39 this reads; nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Wow. God loves us so much that nothing can seperate us from him. He sent his son to DIE on the cross for our sins. Jesus loved us so much he was willing to DIE and bear the pain of death because he loves us.

Finaly in 1 John 4:7 it says; Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

God does intend for us to love. He created us with that desire. Why then do we take love for granted, why do we take it lightly? Isnt it great to know that Christ love is unconditionable? There is no height or depth that compares to the love Christ has for us.