Real Love

"Love is a many splendored thing!"

"Love lifts us up where we belong!"

"All you need is love!"

"Love makes the world go 'round."

"Love means never having to say you’re sorry."

"Love is what makes two people sit in the middle of a bench when there's plenty of room at both ends!"

The More Cynical Would Say:
"Love at first site is often cured by a second look!"

"Love quickens and heightens all senses except maybe common sense!"

Much of what we can know and understand about love comes from the relationship of God within himself.  The Trinity is the perfect example of love.  Think about the work of the Holy Spirit in a person's life.  In addition to convicting people of sin, the Spirit makes Jesus known to them.  Notice how subtly He does this.  He never taps someone on the shoulder saying, "Focus on me, I'm the Holy Spirit!"  He works mightily in a person's life by pointing them towards Jesus.  John 16:14 says He will bring glory to Jesus.

What happens when the work of the Spirit has led someone to the Son of God?  How does Jesus respond?  The Gospels indicate that Jesus, much like the Holy Spirit, diverts the attention from Himself.  He points to His Father.  John 1:18 tells us that Jesus has made God (The Father) known to us. 

At last, when we get to the Father, through Jesus, He shows us the final step in this perfect example of love by glorifying His Son, and sending us His Spirit!

To sum up, The Spirit points us to the Son.  The Son points us to the Father.  Finally in the Father's presence, He says, "Have you accepted my Son?  Have you been filled with my Spirit?"  The nature of love involves perpetually diverting attention from oneself to the beloved.  God is love, and at the core of his very nature, He is utterly unselfish!  This is the true love, the real deal in which He calls all of us to live!  Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

The love of God is expressed well in the song of the same name, which is below.  Enjoy.
 

Happy Valentine's Day!

May you find God's real love to be more than anything you could have imagined, as you wait for the day you see Him face to face!

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.