It’s the month of February, winter is on its last legs and spring is nearly here! We say goodbye to the cold and hello to the sun (at least in some parts of the world we do). February is also notoriously known for the celebration of Valentine’s day, the day where we tell those who are closest to us that we love them. Millions of cards are sent out worldwide to commemorate our love for each other, which, by the way, makes valentine’s day the second biggest holiday in the world.

As we think about those who we “truly love,” as dad mentioned in a prior post, I want you to think on just a couple of things.

Is It True?

First of all the phrase “true love” is actually incorrect. Yes. I said it; it’s wrong. There is absolutely no need for the word “true” at all. The bottom line is love is either love, or it’s something else masquerading as love, most of the time “lust”. Lust can very easily look like love, but ultimately it’s intent is to receive rather than give, whereas love is purely giving without the intent of receiving anything.

Secondly (now this one might sting) I want you to think deeply about this. Do you REALLY love anyone, bear in mind what love really is. 1 Corinthians 13 is a chapter dedicated to the concept of love, let’s look there again and measure our love against that which God says love is.

“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails;” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Do You Love?

Now ask the question, is your love patient? Kind? Are you envious and boastful? Arrogant and rude? This one is crucial… do you insist on your own way? The list goes on, and you can go through it all if you’d like, but look at the last four things. “Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never ends”. We are people who, when things aren’t going the way we’d like them to go, we leave, that is not love. We hear people say “I just don’t love you anymore” that’s not true! The truth is, they should really be saying “I just never loved you to start with.”

The characteristics of love on display in 1 Corinthians 13 are to be true of all of us. However, I am going to go one step further and say you can not love that way through your own doing. We humans are incapable of love, the only ones we do love are ourselves. In 1 John 4:10 we read – “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins”. And later on in the same chapter, in verse 19, John writes “We love because He first loved us”. He being God.

So here we learn that the only way we can love is by God loving us. And God loves us by giving His Son for us, to be the propitiation for our sins. In other words, what I am trying to get at is, the only people who are capable of loving are those who have been saved by Christ through His death on our behalf, and therefore His love is then displayed through us.

You Can Love

So… do you know this love? If not, then that love is available for you through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Simply repent of your sins and take God at His Word that He gifts those with grace who believe in Him.