This I believe

I believe in LOVE. I believe in the love that God has shown to every one of us. The kind of love that caused Him to send us His only son to die for us. The kind of love that caused his son Jesus to be willing to die for us. That kind of love is easy to believe in. It is supernatural. I guess the problem is that there is so little evidence in the world today of this kind of love. Is man even capable of it? There is the occasional example of people performing heroic acts in an effort to save somebody which results in their own death. But unfortunately sometimes there is something that would even lead us to question the motives of those people. Is it from a pure love for mankind or is it from selfish reasoning. One, they feel they cannot live without the other person. Two, a feeling of pride to do something that most other people would not consider and the thought of coming out of it alive resulting in their being known as a hero. There are examples of a parent freely doing something for the sake of their own child which is motivated solely by love, but would that same person act the similarly for a stranger, or better yet, for somebody who has wronged them?

Love is hard for us. That kind of love does not come naturally.

The Beatles were on to something. Of course there are a number of devotees that would say “Duh!” to a statement like that, but be that as it may, I really believe that in one song they wrote, maybe inadvertently, they came up the premise for a life changing credo; all you need is love. Said another way; love is all you need.

Love is patient
Love is kind
Love does not envy
Love does not boast
Love is not proud
Love is not rude
Love is not self-seeking
Love is not easily angered.
Love keeps no record of wrongs
Love does not delight in evil
Love rejoices with the truth
Love always protects
Love always trusts
Love always hopes
Love always perseveres
Love never fails

The word love gets abused a lot. People say things like; I love your hair. I love that dress, I love pizza, I love classical music, or even I love you. But let’s face it, all of those things are pretty trivial and then the words can become hollow and meaningless. What happens when you wake up in the morning after a good night’s sleep and now you’ve got bed head? Will they still love your hair? Fashion changes by the season or by the latest pop star. Please tell me how many people even like pizza with anchovies let alone love it? Do all people who like Baroque care for Medieval era music? It’s still classical. What about this I love you business? How many people fall out of love as easily as they fell into it? We’ll use Elizabeth Taylor as our example here.

The kind of love I’m talking about is pure love. By pure I mean unadulterated, authentic, and free; without boundaries, hesitations, restrictions, or preconditions.

I think the best example of this kind of love has been around for a very, very long time.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever should believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life.

That is true love and it really doesn’t get any better than that.