What is love really?

What is love really?

In a world that is too quick to undermine what is sacred and turn the head from what is true.

In a world that pushes selfish agendas and (at least attempts to) cure darkness with darkness.

In a world that muddies the definitions of love and lust and confuses the clear line between the two.

In a world that brushes off the beauty of faithfulness with a "You do what's right for you" mentality and resists the blessing of true compassion with a "But I didn't feel like it" mindset.

In a world that leaves us spinning and helpless and drowning and wondering in this inevitable mess of Love-malnourishment...

We need an Answer.

What is the answer, then, to overcoming such chaos? What does redemption look like? How does one even go about mentally and emotionally receiving the reality of restorative Grace? How does forgiveness work anyway?...All these questions and more hang on the Truth-starved atmosphere.

And the answer is so simple, so beautiful, so powerful, so freeing: LOVE.

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere.

So, no matter what I say, no matter what I believe, no matter what I do, I am bankrupt without love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Okay, so if love is the answer, and I'm apparently "nothing" without it, this then leads us back to the question at hand: What is love really?

In a world where the enemy has so deviously broken apart the definition of that which we were created to center our lives upon...in our homes, in our schools, in our relationships, in our conversations, in our workplace, on our screens, in our recently-played songs, and on our favorite tv shows...we're left to wonder: What is love really?

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Love is nothing if not patient and kind.

Love is expansive, extensive, and contagious.

Love is healing manifested through small acts of kindness.

Love is hope restored through simple words of encouragement.

Love is genuine selflessness in a confused and self-consumed world.

Love is humility personified.

Love is pure sacrifice and faithful consistency lived out in the daily.

Love is the life-changing collision of brokenness and redemptive grace.

Love is intentional and unconditional.

Love is expecting nothing in return.

Love is standing for what's right and true (especially when it's unpopular.)

Love is speaking Truth, even when it isn't comfortable or easy.

Love is eye contact and a smile when the rest of the world would look away.

Love is necessary for revival and positive change of any kind.

Love is fire--engulfing remnants of self, bits of bitterness, and leftover fear into a brighter blaze of freedom and wonder. Its embers are stirred by abiding in the Savior, our Perfect Example. This Author of Love coaxes life into sparks of compassion and grace until all that is seen is the consuming Heart of Heaven radiating through a surrendered soul.

The Author of Love coaxes life into sparks of compassion and grace until all that is seen is the consuming Heart of Heaven radiating through a surrendered soul.

Love rescues.

Love pursues.

Love blesses.

Love chooses.

Love hopes.

Love helps.

Love heals.

Love grows.

Love perseveres.

Love waits.

Love trusts.

Love creates.

Love protects.

Love respects.

Love listens.

Love communicates.

Love forgives.

Love moves forward.

Love takes nothing for granted.

Love doesn't rush.

Love doesn't give up.

Love doesn't compare, manipulate, or judge.

Love recognizes lies for what they are and obliterates fear.

Love keeps every promise and never keeps score.

Love encourages potential into reality.

Love celebrates with the victorious and weeps with the broken.

Love steps in when there is every reason to run the opposite direction.

Love looks for opportunities to reveal itself in the little things--quietly, kindly, and graciously.

Love speaks louder than any word, its effects echoing into eternity.

Love, in its truest and purest form, exemplified by the One who gave it all up that we may know freedom, is worth it.

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So, in our effort to remember and discover the answer to What is love really?, an even greater Answer to pursue would be: Who is Love really?

It's in discovering The Answer to this new question that we find Freedom, Hope, Direction, and Healing. It's in inviting this Perfect Answer into the very center of who we are, how we live, and how we love that redefines what has been broken and redeems what has been lost.

(Don't miss this.)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

...And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

...We love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:7-12, 16, 19

(Feel free to read that again.)

Love, in its truest and purest form, exemplified by the One who gave it all up that we may know freedom, is worth it.

Who is Love really?

God. God is love.

What is love really?

Love is taking every opportunity to simply let the abundance of God's love for you overflow into the lives around you.

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Revelation: The Author of Love adores you.

Challenge: Be Love to someone today.

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Happy Valentine's Day, friends! :)