Morning Dew

Key Passage: 1 Corinthians 13

Key Text: 1 John 4:19 – “We love because he first loved us.”

Love! A most misunderstood word. Today the world over, people are celebrating Valentine’s day and as it happens, this day is the most profitable one day in the year, especially for retailers. I am always amused at what people have done with this day and I really sometimes feel like screaming for someone to please understand. Understand what love really is or if I can say that differently, who love is?

It is shocking but true that love is not an emotion. Though a lot of people attribute some emotional feeling to love. Some people talk of falling in love, alluding to the fact that they were overcome with a real deep feeling of wanting and desiring someone. Again, a major misconception. Probably this misconception is responsible for many broken relationships. They fell in love and fell out of love. I wish people will truly understand this word love.

Even more absurd is the concept of making love to describe sexual intercourse. Many young unsuspecting girls have been deflowered by the blackmailing statements of some hormonal boy, saying if you love me then you would let me make love with you. If they love you they would wait for the right time. When you are married.

Let me start by stating that LOVE is not an emotion it is an action, that can produce a feeling. It is a deliberate act of a person’s will. You can’t fall in love. You decide to love someone. According to the bible, (by the way this is God’s view), Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.

Looking at all these attributes, it is obvious that this is not a whimsical, head dizzying, knee weakening feeling that we have mostly attributed to love. Love is deliberate, clear minded, not at all selfish. It is not about what we feel, it about who we decide to love.

Love is outer directed. Love anticipates the need of others and meets it. Love never looks for a reward. Love is totally sacrificial. Love costs. Love is a choice. Love does not consider if the recipient is deserving. Love gives.

The scriptures tells us  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” This is what love looks like. It looks at someone in their state of need and decides to help the person out of their predicament, at great personal cost that the person being loved can never repay. This is Love.

1 John 4:19 tells us “We love because he first loved us.” This means only when we have truly received this type of love can we ever even dare to love God.

Finally the bible tells us “God is love”. So love is a Person. Love is God and God is love. So in essence the very core of God is love and everything in His creation was conceived in love and kept in love and responds to love.

Quite honestly, I can’t fully treat this great subject in one small blog. I would come back to it. Suffice to say, If you are celebrating St Valentine’s day, Please spare a thought for the truth and remember the Lord Jesus Christ, who left His throne in Heaven, who became a human being, who came to seek and to save us who were lost. Who took upon Himself the sins of men and paid the penalty for our sins on the cross, by dying our death. If there is a lover worthy of celebration, then let’s celebrate the greatest show of love ever. Let’s celebrate the lover of our souls. Jesus our (my) Valentine!

Let’s Pray – Jesus I thank you for loving me so much. I remind myself today that You gave up everything for me. That love compelled you to die for me. I am grateful and I am indebted to your love. I love you my King. My Lord. My Valentine.