You must understand, though the touch of your hand
Makes my pulse react
That it’s only the thrill of boy meeting girl
Opposites attract
It’s physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore that it means more than that

Oh-oh, what’s love got to do, got to do with it?
What’s love but a second-hand emotion?
What’s love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

This popular 80’s hit sung by Tina Turner tried to tell us that love is just a “second hand emotion”, a brief thrillful reaction between male and female, and that it is only “physical”.  Even though the beat and performance are attracting, the words are lies.  To say that “you must try to ignore that it means more than that” explains Tina’s tumultuous life of never knowing or finding real love.

What is real love?  What does love do?  Who has it?  Where can we secure it?  How can we live love? 

John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, says it all begins with God for God is love—real love, the foundation of love.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  1 John 4:7-8, NIV

The world is looking for love “in all the wrong places” (yes, another song).  Paul answers all the above questions above about what love is and isn’t, how to love, who has it and the importance of living God’s perfect love.  Take the time to read Paul’s words, inspired by God’s love, slowly, carefully and prayerfully…

CORINTHIANS—CALLED AND SENT

1 Corinthians 13, The Message

The Way of Love

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

² If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

^3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

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,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹ When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Lord,

Thank you for loving us perfectly, without conditions, limitlessly, while knowing us completely!  I trust you with my life.  You are life to me.  My hope is in You.  Help me to love others extravagantly like you love us.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen.

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”     1 John 4:9-12, NIV

One of my all-time favorite songs of truth is from Whiteheart…Let Your FIRST Thought be Love!  This will be playing in my head today…

Somehow, someone has hurt you again
And said things and done things you don’t understand
You don’t understand
It’s easy, just to think of your pride
So easy, to get angry inside

But let your first thought
Let your very first thought be love
Let your first thought
Let your very first thought be love, be love
Let it be love

Some people go looking for trouble to start
Oh but those people are hiding a lonely heart
They’ve got lonely hearts
So listen, listen to their silent cries
And touch them with the warmth in your eyes

And let your first thought
Let your very first thought be love
Let your first thought
Let your very first thought be love, be love