Revelation of Love

Over the past couple of days i have been looking over the idea of love. What does love look like? What does love say? How does love act? Why is it so easy to do and at the same time forget how precious it is. I’m guilty of throwing the word around as though it has no meaning. But the lord has begun to show me what true love is. By true love i don’t mean the kind of love that is in the latest Nicholas Sparks novel.

I mean the kind of love that sets you free, the kind of love that doesn’t go away when you mess up, or when you turn away.

This revelation of true love started on Tuesday, July 19 at our VBS ministry site in Jamaica. I was sitting in a large wooden chair with a beautiful little boy sitting on my lap, dozing off with his head gently pressed against my chest. I could feel the slowing of his breath and how his body got heavy on mine. While this was happening I started to realize how much i already loved this small fragile child. I had known him for less than two days and already I knew that I loved him.

I then started to wonder what love was. I asked the lord why humanity can fall in love so easily and so fast. I asked him to show me true love, and he did. God pointed me to 1 john 4:18-19 which says:

“ there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected by love. We love because he first loved us.”

The next verses that popped into my mind were 1 Corinthians 13:3-8 which say:
“ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

The first verses in 1 John showed me why we love. We are so easily able to love because we were first loved with a love so deep that we couldn’t even be able to understand it. At least I have trouble understanding it. The second set of verses in 1 Corinthians 13 showed me the nature and task of love. It showed me that without love we are nothing. The loss of love is to live hopelessly and pointlessly. The loss of love is the loss of life, in all reality.

I finally understand what true love is to look like and who I can get it from.

True love is kind and patient, true love is beautifully unending and unconditionally given. True love rejoices, endures, and has hope in all things. The only true “true love” comes from our Father in heaven and His Son who died because of this deep love. We here on earth can only mimic this love and do our best to ensure it.

So I challenge myself and i challenge anyone reading this to go and share this perfect love we have all been promised.