Love

Love is a subject that has been discussed since the beginning of man’s awareness.  And, man has come up with every explanation possible to describe what love is, and to this day man is still asking, “What is Love?”  The Bible specifically tells us that “God is Love,” yet the question remains, because we still have not fully understood God and how God thinks.

First let me say that love heals your emotions and your sentiments, which is your soul realm, your relation to life, and then also your mind, which is tied to your emotions.  Love is a spirit, which comes into being in you, and it is created and fathered by a spirit because “God is Love.”  Emotions can die, but not love, not God.  It is the outpouring of one personality in fellowship with another personality.

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, the well-known publisher, describes love as follows:

“People talk about love as though it were something you could give, like an armful of flowers.  And a lot of people give love like that, just dump it down on top of you, a useless, strong-scented burden.  I don’t think it is anything you can give.

Love is a force in you that enables you to give other things.  It is the motivating power.  It enables you to give strength and power and freedom and peace to another person.  It is not a result; it is a cause.  It is not a product; it produces.  It is a power, like money, or steam or electricity.  It is valueless unless you can give something else by means of it.”

What a wonderful description of love, however, I’d like to take this a step further.  Since “God is Love,” also called “Agape Love” then the force in you is God.  “Agape Love” has been defined as, “the readiness to renounce ones own will for the sake of another.”  It is a perfect description of submission, or even sacrifice.  You are giving God to another, and what you give is described in 1 Corinthians 13 as, patience, kindness, not being envious or boastful, or arrogant, or rude, and not insisting on your own way.  Not being irritable or resentful, or rejoicing in a wrongdoing, but rejoicing in the truth.  You bear all things, hope for all things, and endure all things.  Love never fails because God never fails.

Love isn’t just something we have, love is something we do.

Kahlil Gibran, the famous author of “The Prophet,” which has been translated into more then twenty languages, and distributed all over the world, was working one day with a friend.  He asked her this question:

“Suppose you were compelled to give up, to forget all the words you know except seven, what are the seven words that you would keep?”

Think about this for a moment, what words would you select?

“I name only five, Barbara wrote.  ‘God, Life, Love, Beauty, Earth,’ and asked Gibran what other words would he select and he answered, ‘The most important words to keep are: You and I…without these two there would need to be no others.’  Then Gibran selected the seven words: You, I, Give, God, Love, Beauty, Earth.”

So as we “love one another,” we are giving each other all that is described in Corinthians, and then giving God Love, the perfect reflection of Himself.  This is God’s perfect will, His desire, and His pleasure, for us to be transformed into His image, so that when we walk down the street, Jesus walks down the street.  The fullness of Christ, total truth, His love, compassion, understanding, patience, tolerance, knowledge, and wisdom, manifested in you, the “Temple of the Holy Spirit.”

In “The Prophet,” Gibran wrote:

“Love is sufficient unto love and “when you love you should not say, ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God.’  And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, it if finds you worthy, directs your course.  Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.”

 “But we all, with open (unveiled) face, beholding as in a glass (mirror) the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Love Eternal in Christ,

Darlene Luke

PO Box 1883

Bethany, OK 73008-1883