What is Love?
We always associate love with romance such as Valentine’s Day, weddings, and other romantic events in life. However, is that the only time we have love? What about the love of your friends and family? That might is not a romantic type of love, but it is still love. We see in Matthew 22, the famous encounter with a Pharisee and Jesus. A Pharisee is a Jewish leader who were real sticklers about the law, which is the first five books of the Bible. This Pharisee asked Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Where did Jesus get these from? Was it out of just in the moment he thought of these answers? We actually get these from the Old Testament. This where the Jews got the law, which is the first 5 books of the OT. How far back do we go? We see this in Leviticus 19:18 says, “Do not seek revenge or hear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.” We also find in Deut. 6:4-5 saying, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD your God, the LORD is one. Love your LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” We find the same message Jesus spoke of in an early part of Scripture written by the hand of Moses. The first Author of scripture. The message of Love is not something new to the message in scripture. From time-to-time, it might be new to us. If we look for a biblical definition of love, where might we turn? If you think 1 Corinthians 13, you are correct.
Love does something to people. It makes people change and see something different. Which brings me to our last point, Love never fails. We see in verse 13 of the chapter. “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. Now, we need all three. We need to have Faith, Hope, and Love. If we have faith and hope, that is good. That is inward. I can say I have faith in Christ. I have hope that he will come back one day. However, love is the outward demonstration of what faith and hope is.
