Love: the Most Used Yet Least Understood Word
Posted: Wednesday, January 16, 2008
by Musa Mhlongo
We live in a world where we are bombarded by a lot of statements regarding the word "love". Statements such as "Love is blind", "Love makes the world go round", "So and so have fallen in love" etc.
Yet when we look around us we find some people who claim to love one another hurting one another the most, fighting like enemies.
In families - love has grown cold, where there was a "wellspring" of love - it has run dry.
According to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV), Love is characterised by the following:
Patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil, rejoices with the truth, protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, never fails.
If you find it hard to describe love, or whether you are loving to your spouse, children, parents, relatives, friends, neighbours, brothers, sisters, colleagues at work; ask yourself these questions:
Am I patient with them? Am I not selfish in my dealings with them?
Am I kind (be it in the way I speak or serve) with them? Am I not rude?
What is my attitude towards them?
Do I rejoice when something evil or bad has happened to them?
When my spouse (or boss, brother, sister, friend etc) advises or corrects me and I realized that it is true – Do I rejoice with the truth and accept it? Or is my response unkind, rude, etc.?
Am I easily angered when I have been wronged? And do I keep a record
of such wrongs?
Do I find myself ridiculing / making fun / bringing down my spouse or friend (especially in public) or do I seek to protect him or her.
We abuse the word "love" – we use it often, and practice it less.
The Bible is very practical and has great answers to issues of life – it is the Word of God. Here are a few other verses on love:
"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth"
1 John 3:18 (NIV)
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" 1 John 4:8 (NIV)
"If anyone says `I love God' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." 1 John 4:20 (NIV)
May the Lord bless you as you meditate on these thoughts.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)i just wanted to say thank you for your giving on the word love.because i didnt understand the whole meaning of loving someone
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