I'm
going to be honest with you guys here for a second. I almost didn't
go through with posting this series because there is so much about
love,
I'm not sure 11 articles can cover 1 100th of the subject. Plus, the
amount of verses on love is absolutely overwhelming. In the back of
my Bible I have kind of an index I made for myself about different
topics in the Bible, and I have two separate columns for love alone,
not to mention things that are related to love, which is pretty much
everything else. There is a lot about love in the Bible. But why? Why
is love so important? Why? Well, I'll be explaining that.
The word
"love" is over-used and over-simplified. The world views
love as an attraction between two people that leads them to date.
Now, I am going to get on a rant about the dating kind of "love".
I'm not teaching for or against any kind of dating method. I believe
that it is completely dependent on the person, the situation, and
age. However, people, especially teens, get "love" and
"like" confused. Love is spending time with someone and
caring about them. Love is putting someone else above yourself no
matter what. "Like" is when you see and treat someone as
you want to treat them. You are in that relationship
because
of your benefits. Like is
attraction
to a relationship while Love is a love and respect for a person. When
you only like someone, you're only in the relationship because you
want to get something out of it. But then when one of you realizes
that you don't love the other, everything ends. When it comes to
relationships, we need to love that person, no
matter
what (this includes if the dating relationship ends) and respect
them, and put God first above all else. Other than those things
nothing matters.
Now, what is love? I'm sure we have all heard 1
Corinthians 13 a million times when talking about love, so I won't go
into that too much. I'm just going to name the characteristics it
says love is. Love is patience, kindness, not envious, not boasting,
not arrogant, not rude, not insisting
on
its own way, not irritable, not resentful, not rejoicing in wrong
doing, rejoicing in truth, bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring
all things. Notice how I put "not insistent on its own way"
in bold and italics.
Many people see this as an excuse to not
teach others diligently. They see this as a reason to slack off and
give up easily. But love isn't insisting
on
its own way, it's insistent on God's way. I know this is a rather
long article but there is a lot about
love
in the Bible. I mean, I have been studying for the past 3 hours and
have barely scratched the surface on any of it. The reason love is in
the Bible so much is because if we all loved with a 1 Corinthians 13
kind of love 100% perfectly, then we wouldn't sin. Every sin has a
negative effect on someone else, whether
we
realize it or not. Not spreading the word enough: lack of love.
Gossip: not enough love for others. Dressing immodestly: not enough
respect for the eyes of men. If we loved everyone and considered
everything, then that takes care of pretty much every sin. This is
why love is so important. I am going to be expanding on this
throughout the series, and I really hope that you stay around and
read the rest of these articles.
