What is Love? – “Love is a feeling that you feel when you don’t know what you are feeling.”
One story was about a man who told his Dr Wife…
Man: I Love you from the bottom of my heart!
Dr Wife: The heart is just a pump that pushes blood throughout the body.
Man: Well then – I Love you from my Blood Pump.
There is something fascinating about Love as defined in 1 Corinthians 13: 1- 8 because the Apostle Paul started off with what disqualifies us from claiming that we Love based on our outward show of greatness. We may be able to “speak all the languages of earth and of angels,” or if we “had the gift of prophecy…” understanding “all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge,” plus added to that, we had mountain-moving faith; then, even more, if we sacrificially gave everything to the poor, even sacrificed our own bodies – and we do not have Love, here is what the Bible says: “Our language of earth and angels would be like clambering noise; our prophecies and mountain-moving faith would amount to us being nothing; and giving everything to the poor and even the pain of self-sacrifice would gain us nothing.” Without Love we don’t sound right; we would be nothing and we would gain nothing. Without Love we would be in a sad state indeed.
LOVE YOURSELF
However, what does God want us to know about the character of Love from 1 Cor 13: 4 – 8? Further, what would that look like if it were flipped and we became the object of that Love rather than us expressing that Love outward to others. Let us not run ahead of each other – there is something profound here. Love is as Love does but Love cannot exist without Love being shown to us in the first place. God Loved us first so that we can experience what we will express to others, by Loving them. What if we look at these following verses with us being the object of “our” Love
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proudor rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.” (vv. 4-5) So, we would be patient and kind to ourselves, we would humble ourselves and not be jealous (of others). We would not be puffed up and boastful so that we can feel we have some worth, and we would not be rude to ourselves -“I am such an idiot! I am such a klutz!” These are two things many people say to themselves and, in effect, are being rude to the person God Loves unconditionally – namely, ourselves.
There is no fear of self-centeredness resulting from looking at Love from the other side, namely, how we Love ourselves, because it is the same Love with which God Loves us and we Love others. Can we truly Love deeply and dearly? (1 Peter 4: 8)
Apostle Peter told us to Love fervently – the Love here is agape as it is in our scripture from Apostle Paul. We should be consistent with how we Love ourselves so that we can be consistent in how we Love God and all of His other children. Let us Love ourselves, because God Loved us first and so that we can Love others fervently.
Happy Love Day men. Afterall, we were made by God to be “Lovers” of Him, ourselves and others.
Author’s notes:
Capitalizing the first letter of the word “love” has been a practice of mine for decades. For me, Love is a Person and I see Love as the all encompassing solution to everything we face on earth.
