The Wednesday Word

On Wednesdays, I like to take one word and really dig into it and pick it apart. I love words and language and all the ways that we use it. I even read books for fun on linguistics because I find it terribly interesting the way we subconsciously string words together to express our true selves like an artist paints emotions into a seemingly innocent landscape. Our central word this week is love and yet everyone presupposes they know all there is to know about love. It's an emotion, it's a "language", it's a way of living. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of love is "a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person"[1]  While that's all good, I believe it is so much more! Believe me, I love a good love story just as much as the next woman, but in my soul, I know that Love with a capital L is soooooo much more than we as humans can fully express that I want so desperately to fully express it! So here, at least, I'm going to try to pour out my heart a little and lay it out what I believe the Scripture tells us Love is truly all about. Let's raise our standards a bit higher and beckon the world to follow, shall we?
So normally we all jump right into 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 because it's right on the money. However, I want to do a little cross comparison between it and other verses in Scripture to show how the "love is" passages actually work. Here's 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Now take those verses and apply them to what is the "mark of a true Christian" in Romans 12:14-21 (emphasis mine)

 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I only emphasized a few places, but each of them lines right up with passages in 1 Corinthians 13. If I were righting a book, I could go throughout Scripture and do this exact same thing over and over again. Scripture lines up with Scripture and if it does, then our lives should line up with Scripture too. Meaning, these verses are not just great pieces to frame and hang on our walls as decoration or to sew onto couch pillows. They are the words we actually live by. The Love described in 1 Cor 13 is absolutely necessary for the Christian Body or it wouldn't be in Scripture. In out society, we have boiled love down to a good feeling and soothing emotion and in doing so, we have completely taken the power out of it. It is that power that has saved humans like us time and time again. It was Love from our Creator that created us. It was Love that meant when Adam and Eve first sinned, it didn't end there. It was Love so powerful that commissioned an ark so that Noah(and the human race) was saved. It was Love beyond our understanding that kept bringing the Israelites back around again and again and again. And it was Love beyond anything our hearts have ever known on this earth that brought God's Son to this earth to die for MY sin and YOUR sin and give us an eternity we will never deserve and can never earn. That is not a warm fuzzy feeling, that is an earth shaking, life changing, world flipping on its head power!!! Love is powerful and moving and completely changes everything when it is of God. We have to know the difference between worldly love which changes day by day and the real, unchanging Love of God. The world will not be moved by our love if it is not of God. They will not know us if what we express is just a warm fuzzy feeling. They will not see our light if it is not powered by Agape love. We have to be genuine in all things, especially in how we Love each other and others. The world has enough "love", what they are thirsting for is God's Love and we hold the bucket to the well. Isn't it time we showed them how to drink?

References
"love". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 12 Jul. 2017. <Dictionary.com http://www.dictionary.com/browse/love>.
**All verses used come from www.biblegateway.com