What is love? We’ve been told that ‘love is blind’ (thankfully for me!), ‘love is never having to say you are sorry’ (obviously never been married), ‘love is a battlefield’ (scary!) and that ‘money can’t buy you love’ (maybe you can just put it on your card?). I don’t find any of those answers particularly helpful, but they do point out what we all know: love is really hard to define
So, how does the Bible define love? Interestingly, it really doesn’t even try. What the Bible does is infinitely more useful: it focuses on what love does in order to show what love is. What God wants us to understand about love is that love always leads to action – and loving action sacrifices self for those we love. We know what love is by what love does for others
What is love? ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son’. (John 3:16) ‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.’ (1 John 3:16)
What is love? To paraphrase 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: Love does patience, love does kindness, love doesn’t do envy, love doesn’t do boasting, love doesn’t do pride. Love doesn’t do rudeness, it doesn’t do selfishness, it doesn’t do record keeping of others’ wrongs. Love does do protection, it does do trusting, it does do hoping, it does do perseverance
What is love? Love is as love does. Let’s do love.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7
