Love Is.....

Back in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, drawings like this one appeared in newspapers every day across the country.  I can remember looking forward each day to the daily "love is....", and I even cut several of them out of the paper and saved them for quite a while.

On Sunday morning in our Life Group, as we were discussing 1 Corinthians 13, the "love chapter", a visual image of these drawings popped into my head.  These drawings captured much of the essence of love, often in humorous ways, but a true understanding of what love really is comes from these verses in 1 Corinthians.

 

In a world where love is defined by movies and sitcoms, we would do well to turn our attention to the Scriptures and find our understanding there.

 

• Love never gives up.
• Love cares more for others than for self.
• Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
• Love doesn't strut.
• Love doesn't have a swelled head.
• Love doesn't force itself on others.
• Love isn't always "me first".
• Love doesn't fly off the handle.
• Love doesn't keep score of the sins of others.
• Love doesn't revel when others grovel.
• Love takes pleasure in the flowering of truth.
• Love puts up with anything.
• Love trusts God always.
• Love always looks for the best.
• Love never looks back.
• Love keeps going to the end.
• Love never dies.                                    (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 The Message)

That isn't my definition.  Or Hollywood's definition.  Or the culture's definition.  It's God's definition of love.  And it's the one we should be paying attention to.

 

"Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.  And the best of the three is love."  (1 Corinthians 13:13 The Message)