Love is...

I Corinthians chapter 13 talks to us about love.  It says,


Love is patient
Love is kind
 Love does not envy
it does not boast
It is not proud
It doesn't dishonor others
it isn't self seeking
it is not easily angered
It keeps no record of wrongs
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth
Love always protects
always trusts
always hopes
always perseveres
Love never fails.

Many of us get confused by the very mention, or even the very thought of love.  We keep looking for a "feeling".  Well, as we all know too well, feelings fade - love does not.  If it did, we'd be in so much trouble because surely God's love would have faded away from us.  "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."  Romans 3:23.  He specifically tells us to "love one another" 1 John 4:7.  His word says, "Husbands love your wives." Ephesians 5:25.  God created us, so He knows what we need.  He knows that women need to be loved.  Being loved makes a woman's battery get charged and stay charged. She feels secure and will do almost anything for that kind of love.  It's that Godly behavior in love that motivates her passion for her man.  Men thrive on respect.  God built them that way.  It keeps a man feeling like he can conquer his part of his world.
     Women will automatically love, women are built that way.  Women don't automatically think of respect as something different from love, but it IS different in so many ways.  That's why the bible has to remind women to respect her husband, added to the love that he already gets from her.  Respect isn't serviette.  Slavery is over.  A woman who is treated well by her man will respect him by encouraging him, being a helpmate, etc.  When will WANT to represent him well when she goes out. She will WANT to make sure he looks good when he goes to work, because he represents not only himself, but also his home.   "A wise woman builds her house, a foolish one tears it down with her own hands."  Proverbs 14:1.  No one has to tell a woman to love her baby, or a puppy, or kitten if she is in her right mind.  It's just what she is built by God to do.  When a man feels that he has to direct, boss, belittle, criticize, be forceful to, or controlling of a woman, he loses her respect and sometimes even her love.  None of those things is on God's list for what love looks like.
 Men have to be reminded that women are made by God to respond to love, so love her with God's love.  "For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.  He gave his life up for her."  NLT (new living translation)
     A man understands respect innately, no one has to tell a man to respect a successful man or athlete.  That's how they are made, but a man has to be reminded that a woman is equal to, but not at all like a man emotionally.  1 Peter 3:7.  "In the same way you married men should live considerately with your wives in the intelligent recognition of the marriage relation, honoring the woman as physically the weaker, but recognizing that you are joint heirs of the grace (God's unmerited favor) of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered and cut off." AMP (amplified version)
There is a song about when a man loves a woman, I believe it's by Percy Sledge. It's very popular and has been sung by many artists.  There's nothing like the love of a Godly man for a Godly woman.

Love shows itself in behaviors that are rooted and grounded in God.  The feeling that we all so desperately seek may come after this behavior is continuously displayed, but any feeling that comes before it is temporary.  The enemy of the children of God knows that we seek feelings and so he sets us up for them, also setting us up for failure ending in divorce.   We get excited by sights and sounds and smells, but those are temporary excitements because soon after they have faded, even in our memories, so does the excitement.  Don't get me wrong, we may remember the cologne or perfume that a person wore and that may trigger a remembrance of their face, but after awhile, even with the most beautiful face or physical appearance, poor behavior sends us away, and snuffs out our past "feelings".  Also, if we don't see that person for awhile, the memory no longer has the same effect as it did in the beginning.  Love is something that God has displayed to us through the ages.  In fact the bible tells us that God is the embodiment of love.  HE is love.  I John 4: 8.  Is it possible, then to have true love without him being in the center of it?

At the top of this lesson there is a list of the behaviors that love shows.  Read it.  Then read it again.  If you see those qualities in a person you have become familiar with, you are looking at love, or at least the development of love.  If you don't see those qualities, you aren't looking at love right now.  If you are making excuses for why a person isn't showing those qualities, you are deluding yourself and attempting, in perhaps desperation, to make a reality out of what isn't real.  Don't allow yourself to be led by an emotion or feeling like loneliness, or fear.  "God didn't give us a spirit of fear, but one of peace, and of power, and a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7.  If God doesn't give us fear, as we can tell by the many times his word says, "Fear Not".   Then don't live in it.  It is a gift of the enemy of the Saints of God and we don't want any gift Satan has to offer.  Of loneliness, God says, "I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth".  We are not alone.

Prayer
Our Father and our God, please help us to walk in your will and in your word.  Help us not to worry or to be afraid.  Your word clearly tells us that "man was made for woman, and woman for man."  Let us not get caught up in fear, or in loneliness, or in desperation.  Help us to trust in you and know that you have our best interests at your heart.  May we always walk in your love.               Amen.