Love Is...

You may remember the "Love is" comic strips that would appear in the Sunday paper. It was about a cartoon couple that clearly loved each other. The comic strip expressed love with clever notes like "Love is ... not asking her how much her new dress cost" or "Love is ... what causes you to loose your concentration".

I always looked forward to reading those comic strips. It became part of my fantasy relationship with my future husband. However, Love is much more than a cartoon comic strip. In my search for true love, I am thankful I found Jesus. Through Him I discovered real love.

Love is...God. God is love. He is the essence of what love is. If we have God in our hearts, we have love in our hearts and we can rely on His love. And it's God's love that can be the strength in your unequal marriage.

1 John 4:16 says the following:

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. (NIV)

It was a difficult time in my life when I felt no love in my heart for my husband. It was heartbreaking because I wanted so much to be in love. I later came to realize that I was more in love with the idea of being in love rather than actually loving my husband. God had to show me what real love was. He did so through my personal relationship with his Son Jesus. As I grew closer to Jesus, I grew closer to the understanding of what love truly is. He taught me that love was not a feeling. By allowing the love of God in my heart, I was able to love with His love.

The Bible instructs us to love one another - to love our spouses. This does not mean to only love those who love us back. This does not mean to just love those who we think deserve to have our love. This does not mean to only love our husbands when they are being lovable. I don't always feel like I love my husband. Believe me when I tell you that it has not always easy. In fact, sometimes it seems impossible to love him. But I know that I do because it's not my love I rely on; it's the love of God within me that I can surely rely on.

Love Isn't

1 Corinthians 13:1-8, the love chapter, tells us what love is and what we are without love. Verses 1-3 demonstrate what our actions are without love:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. (NASB)

I continually ask for the wisdom of God as I live my Christian life before my husband. I need God's wisdom when my husband has a question about my walk with God. If I try to persuade him to live for Christ with my many words, I would sound like a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. Come to think of it, that's what I sound like to him during a football game when I ask him to run an errand in the last quarter.

When I come before the Lord, I want my heart to be renewed and cleansed. Coming before the Lord with my prayers, praises, and requests without love is like going in my garage to bang on the drums expecting my family to understand what I am trying to say. So I ask God to daily cleanse my heart so that I can hear His voice clearly and in turn clearly be able to express His love to others.

Love Is ...

If we continue in I Corinthians 13, we find that verses 4-8a tell us what love is:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; ... (NASB)

I want to encourage you ladies to hide these passages in your heart. With God's love in our hearts we can be patient, kind, and not jealous. We don't need to brag about our church and church friends, giving the impression of arrogance.

With God's love in our hearts we are able to control our tongue and not act unbecomingly. With love dwelling in our hearts, as we stay in God's Word, we don't need to keep a count of all the things our husbands do that drive us crazy. Am I the only one who would begin a conversation with "Remember when you ..." Love bears, believes, hopes, and endures.

Love One Another

Remember this:  with the love of God within our hearts, it is possible to love when we don't feel like loving.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (I John 4:7-8 NASB)