FROM THE PULPIT: WHAT IS LOVE?

What is love? That is a deep question. Many have tried to answer this puzzler from a worldly point of view much to the confusion of everyone who would listen.

An example is the little cartoon "Love is." This cartoon comes up with such startling statements as, "Love is never having to say you're sorry." Very cute, but wrong.

Love sometimes says, "I'm sorry," when you've done no wrong but simply love the one you are speaking to. Every wife knows that. Probably a few husbands as well.

So we still have the question, What is love?

I don't have a worldly answer, but I do have an answer from the Bible ... God is love (I John 4:8).

Now that cast a different light on things for me. If your wife loves you fellows, Thank God! Ladies if your husband loves you, Thank God! Your mother, your father, your brother, your sister or a special friend loves you, Thank God!

Yes I know about the four different kinds of love; brotherly love, mothers' love, friendship and the love between a man and a woman and they are good in their proper order before God. They are a God given gift, for God is the giver of all good and perfect gifts (James 1:17).

Yet there is one more love, that of God toward us. A divine love so great He sent his only begotten Son that whosoever would believe upon Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And He sent His son not to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved.

Many picture God as this terrible ogre sitting upon the circle of the earth waiting vengefully to pounce on us for our wrong doings with wrath and lightnings, and indeed the Bible does say "Vengeance is mine," sayth the Lord.

We see many bad things happen and we say, "An act of God." God however created the world and all that was in it and it was good (Genesis I).

Man sinned and all manner of evil came as a result, but we blame God. How like us to blame someone else for our shortcomings.

However, God loved man above all His creations and in His infinite goodness, chose to replace vengeance with mercy and in love, sent His only begotten Son for our redemption allowing Him to hear our sins if we will but come, accept and believe Him unto repentance.

This is how God has replaced vengeance with salvation, even to the very salvation of our souls.

Following is a poem I wrote some years ago that echoes my sentiments:

The Meaning of Love

By Laura (Marie) Stoner

Our Savior in heaven came down from above

To teach all God's children the meaning of love

Truly He laid down his life for His friends

Dying on Calvary to take up our sins

They led Him up Calvary, not a word did he say

To defend His own life on that dread day

Yet His courage is boundless for He died on the cross

That not one of His loved ones be counted as lost

It might well have ended there on the tree

The blood my Lord shed, was surely shed for me

My Father's own Son, the Savior of men

Suffered and bled, and died and then

With His gentle compassion as mild as a dove

Our wonderful Savior taught the meaning of love.