Do we really understand the true meaning of Love? Love is a word that has a lot of meanings.
1 Corinthians 13: 13 says “Three things will last forever-faith, hope and love- and the greatest of these is love” (NLT).
What is Love? I Corinthians 13: 4-8 (NLT)
1) Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud.
Patient means expectant with calmness, or without discontent; not hasty; not overeager; composed. Having the quality of enduring. Kind means having feelings befitting our common nature; sympathetic. Jealous means envy, discomfort or dislike, skepticism. Boastful means to glorify oneself in speech; talk in a self-admiring way. Proud means feeling self-respect or pleasure in something by which you measure your self-worth.
2) Love is not rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
Rude means violent; tumultuous; harsh. Demand means to ask or call for with authority; to claim or seek from, as by authority or right. Irritable means easily annoyed; readily excited to impatience/ showing impatience or ill temper on little provocation. Wronged means when someone does not treat you in a just way. It is more like when someone has done you an injustice. Learn to forgive and forget past wrongs and mistakes at all times.
3) Love is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Injustice means the practice of being unjust or unfair. Rejoice means feeling of happiness or great joy. Truth means a fact that has been verified.
4) Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Gives up means to let someone/something go. Faith means unshaken belief and purity of thought. It is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld. Hopeful means expecting the best. Circumstance is a condition or fact that determines or must be considered in determining a course of action. It can be bad or good.
5) Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear.
Forever means for infinite time and it will never end.
If you notice that the Fruit of the spirit, Love is mentioned first in Galatians 5: 22-23; But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! I have come to realize why God said Love is patience especially in the life of a single and married person. We all (single/married) need to practice love, care and kindness at all times.
For Singles, this will help you in the process of finding and knowing your future spouse. You cannot afford to marry the wrong person, so you have to patiently seek God’s face and at the same time wait for God to reveal that person to you. For a Married person, you have to practice patience with your spouse. Both of you were raised differently, have different views and opinions about life, and just need some space to be alone sometimes. At the same time, you live in the same house, sleep on the same bed, use the same restroom and share everything together. It’s almost like living with your siblings except you and your spouse have more years to get on each others nerve, special privileges only for married couples, can’t afford to move out nor say harsh words to each other because you are one flesh.
God loved us and died on the cross for our sins. God knows why he said Husbands love your wife. Wives submit to your husbands.
Ephesians 5: 25-33: For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body. 31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
A good example of a couple that showed love to each other is the story of Isaac and Rebakah (Genesis 24:67 -New Living Translation)
"And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent, and she became his wife. He loved her deeply, and she was a special comfort to him after the death of his mother."
This special month of love should be expressed everyday in our homes, marriages and church. Married couples should not only do special things for their spouses on this day but should use every day as an opportunity to express their love to each other. Let’s all treat ourselves with love, care and respect at all times. Let’s help the body of Christ and make an impact in 2011. Let the love of Christ be evidence in your life every day. True love lasts forever!
