Subject: What is Love?
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 01:43:53 +0000
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

 

From:       Rhonda Steiner
To:        heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Subject:  What is Love? 


With Valentines day resently behind us,  I thought I would RESEND my 
devotional on LOVE. Also I recommend you check out this article on 
LOVE. It's a study  my pastor did a while back.  

http:/www.inchrist.org/lovepcl.html


     1 Cor 13:1-13

     1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of
     angels, but have not love, I am only a
     resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

     2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can
     fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
     and if I have a faith that can move
     mountains, but have not love, I am
     nothing.

     3 If I give all I possess to the poor and
     surrender my body to the flames, but have
     not love, I gain nothing.

     4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not
     envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

     5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is
     not easily angered, it keeps no record of
     wrongs.

     6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
     with the truth.

     7 It always protects, always trusts, always
     hopes, always perseveres.

     8 Love never fails. But where there are
     prophecies, they will cease; where there
     are tongues, they will be stilled; where
     there is knowledge, it will pass away.

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

     10 but when perfection comes, the
     imperfect disappears.

     11 When I was a child, I talked like a
     child, I thought like a child, I reasoned
     like a child. When I became a man, I put
     childish ways behind me.

     12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in
     a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
     Now I know in part; then I shall know
     fully, even as I am fully known.

     13 And now these three remain: faith,
     hope and love. But the greatest of these is
     love.

     Oh how the world has misused and abused this
     thing we call love. I looked in the dictionary to see
     how it defined love, check this out: 

        1.A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection
          and solicitude toward a person, such as that
          arising from kinship, recognition of
          attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying
          oneness. 

        2.A feeling of intense desire and attraction
          toward a person with whom one is
          disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex
          and romance. 

        3.a. Sexual passion. b. Sexual intercourse. c.
          A love affair. 

        4.An intense emotional attachment, as for a
          pet or treasured object. 

        5.A person who is the object of deep or
          intense affection or attraction; beloved.
          Often used as a term of endearment. 

        6.An expression of one's affection. 

     MY OH MY! Look at every definition, love is a
     feeling, an emotion, a passion, affection, attraction,
     love affair (thats funny), sexual intercourse (even
     funnier). This is EXACTLY how the WORLD
     defines love, it is a FEELING. And we wonder
     why so many people fall out of LOVE and get
     divorced. Could it be that they never KNEW
     what LOVE was from the get go? 

     Well my friends love is a verb, an action, not an
     emotion. An emotion may be a reaction to love
     but love in itself is not, at least God's definition
     isn't. Can an emotion or feeling protect? Nope.
     Trust? Nope. Hope? Nope. Persevere? Nope.
     Fail? of course, our emotions, if we follow them
     will always lead to failure, so how can love be an
     emotion if, love never fails!?! Love is what you
     do. We don't show God we LOVE him by saying
     "GOD I LOVE YOU" or by having an internal
     mushy feeling. We show him we love him by
     doing. By obeying. This is the only way he will
     know you love him. 

     Joh 14:24 He who does not love me will not obey
     my teaching. These words you hear are not my
     own; they belong to the Father who sent me. 

     I want God to KNOW I LOVE HIM!!!!

     ALWAYS!!! The only way I can show him is
     through obedience. God's Love for us is NOT a
     feeling, he does for us, he DID for us with the
     death of his SON. He is always doing for us and
     his love is absolutely 100% unconditional, we
     never have to worry about God NOT loving us,
     but I want him to know that he never has to worry
     about ME not loving him. Not that he would
     worry but you get my point. 

     When I get married I don't want the man who is
     marrying me to be doing so because of some
     mushy feeling. I want to know that when he says
     he will LOVE me every day of my life that he
     means he will LOVE as in, protect, trust, never fail
     me, every day of my life. Even on the days the
     mushy feeling has long past, he will still LOVE me.

     Ok I think I have driven the point home. I really
     think people, especially in the church where the
     divorce rate is as high as the world, need to wake
     up and realize what love really is as far as God is
     concerned. And stop looking at what the world
     says it is. The only way anyone can experience
     true love is in the Kingdom of God, so no one
     who is out in the world has any idea what love is!
     And until they know God they never will! Sad isn't
     it? So next time someone says "I am in love with
     so and so?" Think about it. The next time you read
     a scripture that says love your brothers and
     sisters, know that God means do for your
     brothers and sisters and not have a mushy feeling
     for them. If we live life by our emotions we are
     destined to fail. Satan has done a good job at
     making people in the world as well as in the Body
     of Christ, think that love is nothing but an emotion.

     Well on that note, go and LOVE someone today! 

     God Bless, Kelly 

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