Do you love me?

There is one truth I have learned that has always stayed with me; I don’t know where I heard it but it has resounded in my heart and mind for years and I know it’s true: Love is not a feeling, love is a commitment.

My dad said he loved us, but he left us. He said he loved my mom but he left her. I saw my friend talk about her new boyfriend; she said she was in love….a month later they had broken up. Friends say they love each other, and then stab each other in the back. Parents say they love their kids yet bring harm and abuse to them. Everyday thousands of people get married. They vow that for better and for worse, through richer and poorer, through any and every obstacle that comes their way that they will love each other forever. At least half of them are divorced within a few years.

What is this thing we call “love” that seems so hard to come by?

The Bible says that: God is Love.

The Bible says:

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.

Love never dies.

What does this mean? It means that Love is not about a feeling! Love is about giving! It is a commitment. As humans we tend to walk around looking for what people can give to us, what we can get out of something. But that is not how God intended. God sent Jesus to the cross to die for us when there was nothing in it for him except to be able to have a relationship with us. God is Love; he is the ultimate example of how we should be! There’s nothing we can ever do for him to repay what He did. Love gives, love cares.

This is the foundation. Study and learn and let God teach you what it means, what it specifically looks like in your life.

-Arlene
crossoverncm@hotmail.com