Love

What Love Is

With Valentine's Day, chocolates and flowers about ready to hit it big in the name of love, I believe a word about true love is in order.

There are at least two words that I hold dear and that I see misused and abused by people mentioning them without taking a moment to consider their true meaning. These two words are:

Love and Friend. For this article I will write Love, saving the word Friend (in the real sense of the word, a treasure) for another time.

Love is carelessly uttered referring to a number of things, having a number of superficial, empty meanings, most of which have nothing to do with honest-to-goodness love. Said real fast, it becomes a mere word, nothing more, nothing less. And, for clarification, true love has absolutely nothing to do with the pagan Roman festival celebrated as Valentine's Day, mostly in the United States.

There nturally are attempts to describe love, usually by psychologists, since they tend to try to explain why people act certain ways. But the Bible gives the best guide as to what love ought to be. The very best description of what love is can be found written by Saint Paul, and inspired by God, in his First Letter to the Corinthians (1:13).

In my over 50 year old Bible St. Paul's words have a special printing with flowery graphics fittingly encompassing his words. So that you may carry these words into Valentine's Day and beyond, I will share these words, in part, with you here.

First Corinthians 13

(Note: The word charity = Love)

"IF I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have charity, I have become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

"And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith so as to remove mountains, yet do not have charity, I am nothing.

"And if I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, yet do not have charity, it profits me nothing.

"Charity is patient, is kind; charity does not envy, is not pretentious, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, is not self-seeking, is not provoked; thinks no evil, does not rejoice over wickedness, but rejoices with the truth; bears with all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

"Charity never fails, whereas prophecies will disappear, and tongues will cease, and knowledge will be destroyed....

"So there abides faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

What St. Paul refers to as "charity" is the love of God above all things and love of neighbor for God; he describes the meaning of perfect love that everyone who professes to love another ought to mean, live and strive to attain. As you can now see, the word Love is a precious, controlled emotion, with no commercial association. It may take a lot of people today by surprise to learn what true love really is.

Thanks for visiting.

All the best -- all the time, Bob

P.S. I have quoted in part only. Refer to the Bible for St.Paul's complete inspired teaching (Cor 1:13).

For more articles by Bob, visit: http://fourwinds.blogster.com