DUST ON THE BIBLE

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT LOVE IS?

What is love to you? We all want to be loved; at least I don't know of anyone that doesn't want to be loved. There are of course those who have been deeply hurt by someone they have loved or believed that someone loved them and then found out otherwise but even they seek the love of parents, children, siblings or friends.

Webster's dictionary defines love as the profoundly tender or passionate affection of one person for another, a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection. Then of course there are degrees of love as in someone who loves to read or loves their car or some other tangible asset. We all know about the love of money!

Is love a condition of the heart then? Or is the heart just an organ that pumps blood throughout our bodies? I believe love is an emotion we were given by our creator when He made us in His likeness (Genesis 1:26) and since the scriptures tell us that GOD IS LOVE (1 John 4:8 and 1 John 4:16) this emotion rests within our eternal souls since God is eternal and we know the body dies and goes back to dust. (Genesis 3:19).

Our problem of course is that when Adam and Eve sinned and fell from grace our ability to retain the pure love of God, who is the essence of pure love, was lost also and now can only be found through the filling of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 5:5 KJV and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

1 John 4:7 KJV beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

I believe the best way to describe love is to read the description given to us by the word of God. Christians know this as the love chapter:

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 KJV ¹Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, (love) I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. ²And 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, and have not charity, (love) I am nothing. ³And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, (love) it profiteth me nothing.

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⁴Charity (love) suffereth long, and is kind; charity (love) envieth not; charity (love) vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, ⁵Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; ⁶Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; ⁷Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. ⁸Charity (love) never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part. ¹⁰But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. ¹¹When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. ¹²For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ¹³And now abideth faith, hope, charity, (love) these three; but the greatest of these is charity (love).

Jesus Christ, the very essence of God, the only begotten gave up His throne in heaven and all the glory that was His due as our creator to come to earth and take on human flesh to show His creation that love is the strongest force there is against the enemy. He did it to strike a powerful blow to defeat our demons, our failures and our sins to conquer a battle we could never win on our own. He came to tell us of His love for us, to show us the way to go and to remind us that this is the time to listen for His heavenly call. He did it to guide our feet while we are upon this shore and to walk with us for evermore. Walk in love, joy and peace then from life's pain you can find release.

1 John 4:10 KJV Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Bob Goulding ©

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