What's Love Got To With It?

My friends in Christ, love has everything to do with it. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39) Notice we are to love God in a different way then we are to love our neighbors. Why do you suppose that the difference in love was acknowledged in scripture? Perhaps it is because we need to understand that there are different kinds of love.

1. -Eros: erotic, passionate love.

2. -Philia: love of friends and equals

3. -Storge: love of parents and children

4. -Agape: unconditional "God" love

Not all forms of love are the same. We have a love for our parents. A love for our children. A love for our friends. A love for our spouse. Our love for our God. In our culture the word love gets tossed around like a used handkerchief. Sometimes we say we love someone even when we don't and other times we don't say it when we do. Love seems to have lost its value over time. This saddens me. Love is a mysterious emotion. It can bring great comfort as well as great despair. Love can build us up and break us down. It can embody us or isolate us. Love can lift us up or bring us to our knees. It can make our hearts whole or break them into pieces. But all that being said, love never fails. "But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away ...And now three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is Love." (1 Corinthians 13:13 NKJV) With Valentines Day approaching lets all remember to respect one another in a loving gentle way and stop tossing it around like a used handkerchief over and over and over again in an ugly dirty fashion. Respect the love my friends, it's more than a second hand emotion. It's the most precious and eternal gift ever. Thanks be to God.