Monday, September 3, 2012

Blog # 270 Love

Blog # 270 Love.

               From the ordinary person who lives next door to you, or across the road, to the wisest professor of human psychology at Harvard or Columbia Universities, all of us know something about love.

               Throughout the Bible we see the importance of love in all we do. Love is shown as taking the weight from human burdens we must bear. When Jacob served seven years to obtain Rachel for his wife, the book of Genesis tells us the seven years seemed but a few days to him because of the greatness of his love. The Prophets Amos, Micah, and Zachariah tell us to love what is good, to love mercy, to love truth and peace.

                We as Christians are constantly being taught and urged to love God and to love one another. St. Paul said that of the three virtues of faith hope and love, love is the greatest. The Apostle John says that God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. The Prophets, the law, and  the Commandments are summed up in the simple command to love God above all and our neighbor as we love ourselves.

                Perhaps the closest we come to a direct definition of love in the Bible are the words of Jesus when He said: No greater love than this can a man have than that he lay down his life for a friend. In every quest for a definition of love, from a reflection upon our own experience, from consultation with married couples, from study of books on human psychology, from a survey of the Bible, it seems we could come up with no more perfect a definition of love than to say to love means to give, and the more we love the more we give.

            For this reason Jesus could say there is no greater love possible for a person than to give one's life, for in giving our life we have no more to give. In death alone is it possible to give it all. Until our very last breath we have that breath to give. We may not be conscious at the instant of our death and so capable to give our last breath at that instant.  So we give it, and everything that will be ours this side of it in our life's story, in the simple daily prayer referred to as The Act of Love:  O my God, I love you with all my heart and all my soul because You are all good and worthy of all my love. 

              Whether the love we speak of is the love of a wife for her husband and a husband for his wife, parents for children, a man for his country, brothers and sisters for one another, believers for their God or God for His people, the definition is the same, to love means to give, the more we love the more we give. Kindness patience forgiveness affection hugs and kisses time assistance and prayer are all gifts that lovers give one another to establish express and deepen their love for one another.

              Nothing that is good need be excluded from love. Nothing is as important in all of our life as love. There are more than seven billion people living on earth today. We are here because God loves us. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I love you. God told me that's OK.

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