Its OK. To Love. There are many occasions in our life that we love someone dearly. Sometimes it the first person that we see and sometimes we must hunt most of our lives to find that special someone. There are also ocassions that we never find that person that we are looking for, but we still have love to give. Love is not physical, love is a place in our spirit that needs to be filled. Sex is not love but only the expression of it. Love is sharing the good times and the bad. Love is an opportunity to deliver ones soul to another for safe keeping. Love is a fulfillment of Ideas and thoughts. Love is the union of two minds, two hearts and two souls. Love is sacrificing ones self for another. Pain, Suffering, anguish and many sleepless nights are also common in love. Tears and sorrow in the loss of a love. Many have asked, ”With all this, Is Loving someone really worth it?” The answer is yes. Without love Jesus would have never died for strangers and sinners, God would have never gave His Son for a sacrifice. Lets read a little scripture. Love is fulfillment of the Law of God and any thing out side of Gods law is an abomination and not love. 2Co 12:15 And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; {Paul is speaking, not financially but of his life. Sometimes we give all for the one we love.} though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. {This is very true. Sometimes we love so much that what we receive in return is less than what we give.} 2Co 6:6 By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, { Love takes many forms. There are too many people that relate love with the pleasures of the body. These people are missing out of what love is all about.} 2Co 2:4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; { The sacrifice of the heart, as Paul states, is one of the purest forms of love.} not that ye should be grieved, {Not allowing the other to suffer but to command all suffering to ones self.} but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you. { The sacrifice of ones self is always recgonised by the other. Some of the greatest love is when we scrafice all without letting anyone know it.} In John 14:15, Jesus commanded Love but does demand it, there is a difference. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Are we commanding or demanding love? Have we gotten so self-centered in our own lives that we forget what love is? How many, here today, are willing to give their own lives over to the other? Are willing to give up your own life, needs, desires, wants and goals for someone else? Lets take, Mark 12:33as an example. [Speaking of God]“And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And to love with ALL, Heart, Understanding, Soul and strength. Is this not what we are to be doing with our husbands and wifes? Are we not also to be doing this with our enemies and neighbors? Are we not to be doing this with ourselves? To love with all our Heart, that is who we are inside and not outwardly. We can always find people that will love us outwardly. This is a false love, a love that exists only for the moment. To love with all our Understanding, Understanding the needs and wants of the other. Being there when the other crys, for no apparent reason, being there when the other is depressed or down and not knowing why. To love with all our soul, the part of us who makes us an individual, the thoughts, the emotions, the feelings, one for another. I have always said, I am who I am by the grace of God. To love with all our strength, loving to the fullest measure that is within our ability. Jesus gave His life, knowing well that He would be able to take it up again unto Himself. We can Love, with all we are and still be assured that we are still in control of who we are. We do not have to give up our identity to love. We are still an individual, still able to make decisions based on what is right and what is wrong. Is Jesus stating, in John 10:17, that His Father would not have loved Him if He refused to be the Sacrifice for man? No. Jesus is stating that no matter what His decision, His Father would always love Him. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.” John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Can you love someone that doesn’t love you, can you express love to someone else that refuses to return that love? Yes. Jesus did and we can. We don’t have to be ashamed to express love. Expression is a way of venting our thoughts and feelings. To paraphrase a verse of scripture, the love of God, and the love of man, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. Just because others don’t love you doesn’t mean that you cant love them, just because others don’t show love to you doesn’t mean that you can show love to them. Rom 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Rom 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. We don’t have to be ashamedto love. We can show love in many ways. Does a man love his children when he refuses to feed them, does a man love his spouse when he refuses to care for them, does a man love God when he refuses to serve Him? No. Refusing to feed, to care and to serve is the absence of love and the breaking of the Law and not the fulfillment of it. There are many verses in scripture that state what love is, the love of God, the love of Spouse, the love of neighbor, the love of enemy and the love of Children. Lets not be afraid to love. ars
