A Woman's Heart - The Gift of Love - Part I
Why is it that we tend to fall in and out of love? In the book the five love languages, Dr. Gary Chapman states that falling in love is not love at all; it is a phase where people have no control over their emotions. He said love is about choice and in the stage of falling in love it appears that the person has no choice. So it is not love at all but euphoria of emotions.
Well, I agree true love is about choice, but it is also about sacrifice and commitment.
The heavenly Father gave us a picture of love. First, no matter what we do it does not change how He response to us. Secondly, he gave first his expression of love through the creation of man-kind and then through the person of Jesus Christ. He chose to create us and then loved us by giving us everlasting life through His Son Jesus the Messiah. Jesus chose to give his life up for us that we may become children of God. He personal chose to lay down His life so you and I who believe in Him could have eternal life.
Love is all about choice and commitment. Many of us go throughout our entire life focusing on how to get love or why we have the lack of love. We try to figure out our five love languages so we can get better love. We read hundreds of books throughout our lives on love and sex so we can get more love and sex. It is all about us for the most part rarely about the other person. But, if you ever going to receive true love you have to be fully committed to loving other people especially when they least deserve it. You also have to be committed to loving God no matter what is happening in your own life. Very few of us think that love is a choice and a commitment that requires us to give up our lives for someone else. If we are not feeling it we want out of it!
If you have an unfaithful heart to those you are in a relationship with you will have an unfaithful heart to God. God brings certain people to your life to teach you the meaning of love and to help you to be faithful and committed. Instead we look for love in all the wrong places and once we have someone who God has given us we treat them as though they were the least of all the people. How many times have you known people who are married when they are out having dinner in a restaurant act as though they are not really with each other? They barely speak to each other or they have very little eye contact. Sometime one is reading the paper and the other is looking around. They might as well have had dinner alone. Yet when those same people are with their business partners or friends they behave as though they were married. They laugh with each other and joke around. They have intense conversation with each other and some even sit so close to each other you could not get a newspaper between them. So many people think love is about a feeling and an intense emotion. But, it is really something that is inside of you so deep that sometimes your feelings cannot explain your commitment to the other person. God told Hosea in Chapter 2 and 3 that He wanted him to love his wife who was a prostitute and had been unfaithful, because it was an expression of His love for Israel (God’s wife). In spite of Israel unfaithfulness and prostitution to other gods God redeemed Israel and call her his own. It was not about what Israel had done but about God’s love covenant to Israel. Once we understand the meaning of a committed love we can experience the gift of love. Marriages where couples are good friends who are committed to each other usually works out the best and have the right environment for experiencing the gift of love.
So God gave Paul the meaning of the gift of love. In I Corinthians Chapter 13 – Paul is telling us about this gift of love. The church of Corinth had problems with people who insisted on expressing their gift of speaking in tongues. They were unruly and unloving to those around them. So Paul tells them that the Holy Spirit gives us nine distinctive gifts (Words of Wisdom, Words of Knowledge, Special kind of Faith, Power to heal, Power to Perform Miracles, Ability to Prophesy, Discernment of spirits, gifts of tongues and the interpretation of tongues), but the greatest gift is gift number ten – the gift of Love. This tenth gift was so important that Paul wrote 13 verses about it.
So remember this week to bring the gift of love to someone today. Because, without the gift of Love all the other gifts in life are powerless.
Love and For Him Always,
Pastor Tricia
Well, I agree true love is about choice, but it is also about sacrifice and commitment.
The heavenly Father gave us a picture of love. First, no matter what we do it does not change how He response to us. Secondly, he gave first his expression of love through the creation of man-kind and then through the person of Jesus Christ. He chose to create us and then loved us by giving us everlasting life through His Son Jesus the Messiah. Jesus chose to give his life up for us that we may become children of God. He personal chose to lay down His life so you and I who believe in Him could have eternal life.
Love is all about choice and commitment. Many of us go throughout our entire life focusing on how to get love or why we have the lack of love. We try to figure out our five love languages so we can get better love. We read hundreds of books throughout our lives on love and sex so we can get more love and sex. It is all about us for the most part rarely about the other person. But, if you ever going to receive true love you have to be fully committed to loving other people especially when they least deserve it. You also have to be committed to loving God no matter what is happening in your own life. Very few of us think that love is a choice and a commitment that requires us to give up our lives for someone else. If we are not feeling it we want out of it!
If you have an unfaithful heart to those you are in a relationship with you will have an unfaithful heart to God. God brings certain people to your life to teach you the meaning of love and to help you to be faithful and committed. Instead we look for love in all the wrong places and once we have someone who God has given us we treat them as though they were the least of all the people. How many times have you known people who are married when they are out having dinner in a restaurant act as though they are not really with each other? They barely speak to each other or they have very little eye contact. Sometime one is reading the paper and the other is looking around. They might as well have had dinner alone. Yet when those same people are with their business partners or friends they behave as though they were married. They laugh with each other and joke around. They have intense conversation with each other and some even sit so close to each other you could not get a newspaper between them. So many people think love is about a feeling and an intense emotion. But, it is really something that is inside of you so deep that sometimes your feelings cannot explain your commitment to the other person. God told Hosea in Chapter 2 and 3 that He wanted him to love his wife who was a prostitute and had been unfaithful, because it was an expression of His love for Israel (God’s wife). In spite of Israel unfaithfulness and prostitution to other gods God redeemed Israel and call her his own. It was not about what Israel had done but about God’s love covenant to Israel. Once we understand the meaning of a committed love we can experience the gift of love. Marriages where couples are good friends who are committed to each other usually works out the best and have the right environment for experiencing the gift of love.
So God gave Paul the meaning of the gift of love. In I Corinthians Chapter 13 – Paul is telling us about this gift of love. The church of Corinth had problems with people who insisted on expressing their gift of speaking in tongues. They were unruly and unloving to those around them. So Paul tells them that the Holy Spirit gives us nine distinctive gifts (Words of Wisdom, Words of Knowledge, Special kind of Faith, Power to heal, Power to Perform Miracles, Ability to Prophesy, Discernment of spirits, gifts of tongues and the interpretation of tongues), but the greatest gift is gift number ten – the gift of Love. This tenth gift was so important that Paul wrote 13 verses about it.
So remember this week to bring the gift of love to someone today. Because, without the gift of Love all the other gifts in life are powerless.
Love and For Him Always,
Pastor Tricia
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