What is love?

Love is often defined in terms of what we “do” but I believe we need to be careful not to confuse the evidence of love with love itself. I Corinthians 13 tells us: “1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (NIV).

Verses 1-3 are clear that what we do, if not undergirded with love, is nothing. Thus, love is not the action, love is the motivation; the heart of the matter. Paul goes on to describe love based on the evidence of its presence, but again, he does not assume to define love here, just to describe love.

One thing we can know for sure is that love is vitally important. Verses 8-13 explain that love is everything, the greatest thing, the main thing.  Verse 13 also explains that three elements abide together: faith, hope, and love.  If in my heart I lose hope, I begin to lose faith and I lose my connection with love, and my ability to love.  If I lose faith, I cannot love and I lose hope.  And, if I do not love, I have not faith and no hope.  In order for these three centerpieces of life to remain in me, they must abide together in my heart.  Hopelessness, despair, negativity, doubt, faithlessness, and self-centeredness are all enemies of love.  

I am going to suggest that love is the presence of Jesus. Further, I am suggesting that without Jesus, there is no love. I am saying that love is not an action, it is His presence. Most importantly, I am saying that love behaves as His presence behaves. In other words, love looks like love.

What does Scripture say about these contentions? I John 4 states: “7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (NIV).

Alright, so we love each other because God’s love lives within us. Our actions, if motivated from love, will present as Jesus presents Himself to us.  In the mirror of Jesus, we can see what love creates.  

The cross is the ultimate expression of love - not love itself, because that love existed in the heart of Christ from the beginning of creation - but the product of love, and the evidence of love, true to His heart, given freely for us.

The Sad Prophet

Jeremiah was called on by God to be the prophet who spoke the truth of Judah’s impending captivity. God was not asking Jeremiah to call the people to repentance, like Isaiah had done. Jeremiah was simply stating the truth of the consequences of their refusal to repent when urged by God to do so.

It would not be a pleasant task to do what Jeremiah was asked to do: to stand before God’s people and pronounce the loss of their land, their freedom, their homes, and their place of worship. Predictably, the people did not want to hear what Jeremiah had to say. Denial abounded in Judah during that time. People were asserting peace when there was none; false prophets were claiming God would never take the land away from His people (in spite of prior warnings and opportunities to repent); the nation believed in a false security of birthright instead of recognizing the consequences of their actions and choices. They felt “entitled” instead of responsible. They rejected righteousness of heart in exchange for hedging their bets with false gods – pretending to still worship the One True God but failing to see the hypocrisy in that position. Simply put, the people of Judah were living in lies. Here is what God told Jeremiah about the hearts of the people:

3 "They make ready their tongue
like a bow, to shoot lies;
it is not by truth
that they triumph in the land.
They go from one sin to another;
they do not acknowledge me,"
declares the LORD.
4 "Beware of your friends;
do not trust your brothers.
For every brother is a deceiver,
and every friend a slanderer.
5 Friend deceives friend,
and no one speaks the truth.
They have taught their tongues to lie;
they weary themselves with sinning.
6 You live in the midst of deception;
in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,"
declares the LORD.
7 Therefore this is what the LORD Almighty says:
"See, I will refine and test them,
for what else can I do
because of the sin of my people?
8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
it speaks with deceit.
With his mouth each speaks cordially to his neighbor,
but in his heart he sets a trap for him.” (Jeremiah 9:3-8)

Look at the repetition of the lies, the deception, the deceit, and the lack of truth! “You live in the midst of deception” brings to mind an image of people living in a cesspool and calling it a garden. Darkness covered them, embraced them, cloaked them, oppressed them, and choked the life from them.

Are we now, in this time, in a similar state to those in Judah at the time of Jeremiah? I am reminded of II Timothy 3, where Paul also predicts a time when mankind will descend anew into the cesspool: “ 1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. 6They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. 8Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.”(II Timothy 3:1-8)

I look around our postmodern, relative truth-believing, secular humanistic, blaming, responsibility-rejecting, and so-called (man-made) “social justice”-focused society and see exactly what Paul was describing, and I feel like Jeremiah must have felt. Jeremiah called out to the ones God called the remnant – those who would still be following God, even in captivity. In the same spirit, I call out to those whose hearts still desire the truth of God – the real truth, not the false prophecies of “peace peace” and the cheap, loveless grace we so often see now – and I urge you to stand firm. As Paul wrote, “¹³ Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. ¹⁴ Do everything in love.” (I Corinthians 16:13-14)  And, “⁵⁸ Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”  (I Corinthians 15:58). 

Seek out others who also desire God’s truth, share in love and growth and the strength of prayer and God’s presence, listen to His voice and His voice alone – and in all things, stand firm, as Paul repeatedly calls us to do. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1).  “¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. ¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” (Ephesians 6:10-18). 

Remember: there is no truth apart from God.  Humans are incapable of goodness or decency or peace without God’s Spirit within our hearts, since “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17).  Keep Love as the highest value.  Jesus is everything - and He is the only thing.