I would imagine that if one were to survey a group of adults and asked them to define what love is, there would be a variety of answers. For some of us, defining love is difficult, because there are many different kinds of love. We love ice cream, or love old movies, we love our children, or even a spouse. We fall into love, and out of love, We love and are in love.
According to others, the Greek language does a very good job of describing the different types of love, brotherly love, familial love, maternal love, unconditional love, physical love. But, I wonder is there something else? How about true love? We hear that phrase tossed around, especially in romantic novels or movies. The hero or heroine claims to have found their “true” love. I wonder if that is in opposition to a “false” love. Were the others just pretending to be true? What does it take to declare something or someone as a “true” love? Longevity? Compatibility? Being the perfect person we had in mind 24/7, 365? Loyalty? Faithful? Now, it sounds like we are looking for a pet or something.
Just how should we determine what true love should look like? If we look to the Bible as a source in defining love; we find perfect or true love coming from God. It is unchanging, constant, infinite and beyond our understanding.
This kind of true love is what the Apostle Paul prayed that the church in Ephesus would know for themselves. Paul wrote: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long, and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19, NIV). In this passage, Paul is also trying to reassure the church that any suffering he had experienced had been for them and for God’s glory. I think he was trying to tell them if they would know how much God loved them in sending Jesus, they wouldn’t be afraid for him, or feel bad over what had happened. The suffering and difficulties were something Paul was willing to risk, because he himself had grasped how he was loved by God, the source of true love. The kind of self- sacrificing love that is beyond our limited human brain to understand.
If you have happened to read about near death experiences, of NDE’s as they are called, multiple accounts describe being in a presence of love which is beyond anything experienced on earth. It completely enveloped them. It is an interesting perspective on what Heaven might be like, in the presence of a loving God. For those who have been through this experience, they find themselves unable to describe it adequately, but many recount how they didn’t want to go back and be revived, because of this overwhelming sense of love and peace.
For most of us, we choose not to think about life after death. At least not for now, there will be time later when we are old. We are too caught up in life here. We struggle and search for paths through challenges. We search for what makes us happy. We search for a special someone that we can call a true love. But in the midst of this life, striving for all this, there is still a God who loves us very much. Who is a real “true” love, that promises to never leave us or forsake us. He is who we should be looking to, and all the other striving will be less about what we do, and more about what He has already done for us. He is our “true ” love. -God Bless You, Nancy
Moving Forward 