This week’s Truth Speakers for Truth Seekers column is about God’s sacrificial love and the Valentine’s Day the month of February is known for.
Share
Welcome to the month of February which amazingly is already getting into its second week. It is known as the month of love according to the World’s calendar with February 14 smack in the middle. Known as Valentine’s Day.
This column will not be about that as many may share their view on this famous or to some now infamous day.
I would suggest you to do your own research. Be informed and then decide if you want to really partake this year of the world’s agenda and propaganda regarding “Valentine’s day”. Added to that day, I would say you will be adding to the world’s money bank. The choice will be yours.
Many shopkeepers will hike their prices on roses, flowers, love gifts, cards etc. as will many restaurants where many “lovers” will take their sweet heart for a romantic dinner for a hefty price hoping they will stir up some romantic love on this particular day.
I will challenge you today to examine the heart of God instead and the kind of love He has for mankind. And that He wants to fill us with!
If God is as powerful and as mighty as many say He is, He can stand a challenge. If there would be one quality we would like that God to have, it is true sacrificial love. Does He has that and can we find a description of that anywhere? Yes!
In order, though, to know the true meaning of it, we will also have to know its counterpart- God’s opponent or enemy. If there would be no comparison, we would still not grasp the meaning of it or truly be able to experience it.
Light is only enjoyed when we have known darkness. True love is only appreciated when we have experienced the lack of it and seen hatred, death, destruction around us. (this is no it to say that is the reason why there is all that evil. That is the choice people make to partake of that and be the cause of it or not)
The source of everything, contrary to the true kind of love, is no one else but that creature Lucifer or satan. Is that creature powerful? He will be as powerful as we allow him to be in our lives. We have the power to resist him in that mighty name of Jesus!
Let’s examine 1 Corinthian 13 from the Holy Scriptures. The one who was writing them was no other then the Apostle Paul. He himself who had been persecuting Christians, putting them in jail and more became an instrument of the God kind of love when God intervened. On the way to Damascus, he found himself struck by light, blinding him to where he had to be led by the hand to the very city where he would be persecuting the Christians, ripping families apart, jailing them off and putting them to death. He had the letter of permission of the highest authority of that day in his hand. The light that struck him, stopped all that.
This same Paul later wrote the greatest love chapter ever written. He wrote that to the Corinthian church who thought they had it all together. Not though in the love department. And therefore the rest did not count in God’s book.
Ready still to dive in? It is written in the Passion translation, a beautiful paraphrase. With my comments in parenthesis and bold.
1 Corinthians 13
Love, the Motivation of Our Lives
1 If I were to speak with eloquence in earth’s many languages, and in the heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn’t express myself with the God kind of love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal. (the motivation to speak like that and why should be clearly known, if a person wants the hollow sound of nothing)
And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains, but have never learned to love like God, then I am nothing. (People can be in awe over what you speak to them, the secrets God has revealed to you about them, but if love is missing, it is NOTHING!)
And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr, without the pure motive of the God kind of love, I would gain nothing of value. (Again the why of any of this is important)
God’s true Love is large and incredibly patient. His Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. God’s Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. God’s Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. God’s Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. God’s Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. God’s Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. God’s Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. (Compare that with yours- If you see yourself reacting the opposite of this God kind of love, it is NOT love but directed towards yourself and your own interests)
Perfect Love
God’s kind of Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten. Our present knowledge and our prophecies are but partial, but when God’s love’s perfection arrives, the partial will fade away. When I was a child, I spoke about childish matters, for I saw things like a child and reasoned like a child. But the day came when I matured, and I set aside my childish ways.
For now, we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected in a mirror, but one day we will see face-to-face. My understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will understand everything, just as everything about me has been fully understood. Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and the God kind of love—yet God’s love surpasses them all. So above all else, let God’s love be the beautiful prize for which you run.
My ending question: What are you running after this month? If you want to build for eternity, run after the God kind of love.
Have a week filled with the God kind of love and getting to know this wonderful God of true love. Just ask Him! “God, if you are true, let me experience that kind of love this month.”
Blessings
Akhrienuo