Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The Truth About Love Introduction: What Love Really is/ A 1 Corinthians Kind of Love


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.