Thursday, June 18, 2009

The Greatest of these is Love

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Love is a four letter word in the English language. The word has become loud and obnoxious to our ears. We have the need to have our love now, all is fair in love and war, we can't stand it when someone else has love and we do not. If we are lucky enough to get it then we proclaim it though our network of friends "I found my love." If that love is not shown in return we start to wonder what is in it for me, that makes me mad, and remember how that person has hurt me so that we can bring it up in a future fight. We find pleasure in moral filth (pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry for example; not into that, how about what is now considered entertaining would have been pornographic 50 years ago). Honesty? We are skeptical. We question whether true love exists. We give up when love becomes to difficult. Love ends when we "fall out of love."

What happened? Did we lose our way????? I think part of the problem is that we have lost loves meaning. Think about we use the same word "love" to describe God's passion for us, the vow that we take saying "till death do us part," the relationship we have with good friends, our pets, a car that we like, our favorite food, a special new outfit, blogs, a clever joke or saying, favorite book, favorite TV show, job, house, or song. This same word is used to describe when our enemy gets there just reward, when a spouse finds a new fling, to sell us something we really do not need, prostitution, jealousy over something that another has that you do not have, to tell someone that we don't want to do something (ie I would love to if I had the time) and on and on.

Here is the problem. Love has come to mean so many things that it has lost its meaning. No wonder a person can be unfaithful to their spouse and turn around and call it "love." It is sad to hear those words, "I just don't love you anymore." Well either you have not understood love, or you never had it. I hope that as we study 1 Corinthians 13 we can clear up some of this confusion that is so pervasive in our culture.

God Help us to know Your love! Help us to experience Your love. Help us to share Your love. In Jesus Name AMEN

Next What is love?

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