What is Love according to God's Word?
February 14 is Valentine's Day. A day set aside to show our loved ones how much we care for them;
gifts are given, and thousands of cards will be exchanged by children and adults. Sweethearts will tell each other
"I love You", yet is this real love? Let's see what the Bible has to say about love...
In I Corinthians 13, reading from the Amplified bible:
1) If I can speak in the tongues of men and even of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional,
spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God's love for and in us) I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2) And if I have prophetic powers - that is, the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose; and
understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have (sufficient) faith so that I can remove
mountains, but have not love (God's love in me), I am nothing - a useless nobody.
3. Even if I dole out all that I have (to the poor in providing) food, and if I surrender my body
to be burned (or in order that I may glory), but have not love (God's love in me), I gain nothing.
4. Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy; is not
boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.
5. It is not conceited - arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude (unmannerly), and does not act
unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking;
it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it - pays no attention to a suffered wrong.
6. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
7. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person,
its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything (without weakening).
8. Love never fails - never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end. As for prophecy (that
is, the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose) it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be
destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away (that is, it will lose its value and be superceded by truth).
10. But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away - become
antiquated, void and superseded.
11. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that
I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.
12. For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection (of reality as in a riddle
or enigma), but then (when perfection comes) we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly);
but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and
understood (by God).
13. And so faith, hope, love abide; (faith, conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and
divine things; hope, joyful and confident expection of eternal salvation; love, true affection for God and man, growing out
of God's love for us and in us) these three, but the greatest of these is love.
After reading these scriptures, I have to admit there isn't one person , including myself, that I know that lives
up to what God calls love. If we look at the T.V. and see what it portrays as love, it is sensual, with only self in
mind. God's love wasn't selfish. He gave all He had in love. His only thought was of others. While
we were yet sinners Christ died for us. That is real love. As we think on this love chapter this week, let us
try to put God's love into action in our lives. Perhaps then a lost and dying world will see what God is truly like,
and receive the same love God gave us.
