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What is Love?

by Peter Summersby
1/07/2015 / Relationships

So today I would like to give our audience something a little more deep to think about. I don't know about you but I like to ask questions about the established preconceptions that society passes down to us.

One of the things that I have questioned recently is the description of love or the way society views love in this world in which we live.
Today we will be looking at some of the preconceptions that surround love and what is at the core of love and how do we know love when we find it.

The first concept we be looking at is the concept of a soul mate, it is not a new concept that we came up with, however the idea originates from Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium. The idea came from that original man had four legs and four arm and we displeased the Greek gods of old and then Zeus came up with the idea to split us in two and from that point we have being searching for our other half. Soulmate
This idea flies in the face of biblical teaching about the origins of man.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;

Genesis 2:21-22 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

Armed with this information does the concept of a soul mate really exist? The Concept might exist but the truth of the matter is that it is not a real thing. The world continues to pump the idea of soul mate and true love into the airwaves.

Why?

What does the world have to gain by telling us that there is someone out there that is a perfect match for us?
Well lets think about it for a bit .... looking for love is a large business, in Australia alone we spend $90 million annually. Looking for love in all the wrong places

If there only one person for you, what happens if that person gets hit by a bus?
Do you only have that one person and anyone else you spend the rest of your life with a pale substitute? Or who says that we will even meet this person? By believing this idea what happens?

I heard of a man who had been married for 25 years and then finds a person that he believes to be his soul mate, and she is not his wife.
What should he do? Should he leave his wife and chase after this new woman? What does this accomplish? Nothing! It will only causes dissatisfaction with his wife and his wife will pick up on that and will start to protect herself from a husband who is withdrawing from her.

The only thing that holding onto this concept of a soulmate has done is place questions into his head about his marriage. Is this the result of the devil? I believe so, he has a stake in the destruction of the sanctity of marriage. The devil wants you to think that there is someone better for you out there, so you keep looking for love. If you keep looking for love while in a relationship it will destroy your current relationship.
The devil opposes everything that God has set up.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. So what is love?
God calls himself love... To find the answer to what is love, we need to ask what the bible says about it!!

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

These verses are well known but what do they mean?
Let's look a little closer.... In each of these statements about love, one thing is constant love is not stagnate, it does not sit still, it keeps moving. It acts, it is never still long.
Love is not a noun, it does not describe something that we feel, it is a verb, it is a doing word. I think that these words are over used and under-appreciated and not understood correctly.
To really understand how love we need to see it doing something. The first example that springs to mind is the demonstration of Christ on the Cross bleeding to death for us so that we may be able to come to him.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Another example still exists one in which we can see love never failing. It is the story of Hosea. Hosea was told to go and marry for himself a harlot. So he did, he married her and took her away from her life of sin.

Hosea 1:2-3 When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea"Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry And children of harlotry, For the land has committed great harlotry By departing from the LORD."So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim,

What did she do? She left him and went back into harlotry.
God then tells Hosea to go and get her back.

Hosea 3:1-3 Then the LORD said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans." So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. And I said to her, "You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a manso, too, will I be toward you.

So then are we to view love like God does, we are to love like Gods loves. He loves us because he decided to do so. Christ didn't have to come to die for us but he did, was it difficult, I believe it was most definitely. To love you must risk the other person saying no. You must allow them the freedom to either come to you in love or to walk away from your love. Love is not a wishy washy feeling that wells up inside you and then passes. Love is a choice that you make every day, and one you continue to make every day.

When I first came to Christ I came to the realisation that I was unworthy of his love, nothing I could do, would qualify me for his love.

As it says in Isaiah 64:6 But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnessnes are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

I cried out to God with this realisation and said I don't deserve your love, His response was simple and unconditional "I love You"
This is the greatest expression of love that I have ever seen in my life simple and unconditional nothing I could do could separate me from his love.

The words of Paul ring out in Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing else needs to be added, to that from me, love is simple and unconditional. It is the same love I try to show my wife every day of my life. I accept her for the person that she is without question and without condition. I love her and I risked everything I had built with her when I asked her to marry me. Love is an action I choose to make every day.

Go now and just as you have received, freely give to one another in love.

Signing off,

Peter

I am an Australian Christian with a heart for the truth of the Lord. I am a blogger with a heart for truth and talking about the curious things that I see in the world. My wife is my manager and my inspiration, my greatest friend. Feel free to follow me here:
http://peterandpetua.blogspot.com.au/

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

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