With Valentine's Day just around the corner, the theme of LOVE is definitely in the air! Even I have a few surprises for those loved ones in my life that I want to express love to. I want not only share my feelings of appreciation for them, but to also say to each of them that he or she is very special to God, which quite honestly, is more valuable than any emotional thrill a box of candy, a bouquet of flowers or gift that I could give.
Love can be such a vague term in today's standards. We say we LOVE our bright, new, pink socks and then, using the same word, we express our love for family, friends, food, and God, etc. But when I research to determine the meaning of just what love is, I find that even Jesus used the term to refer to how we should live our lives in this world:
"Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’[e] 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40 NKJ
Sometimes I remind my children that the Bible says 'to love God and to love one another'. Of course, that usually comes after an offense of some sort, either shown by a lack of knowledge of God's word and or a grievance toward a sister or brother. But what does it really mean to 'love one another'?
Without going into much detail with the Greek terms for love, which are: eros-physical love; phileo-brotherly love; and agape-the love God shows us. I will only reference the Old Testament where the Ten Commandments are laid out for us to see. No, we won't find Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner there, but we do see on those tablets of stone that Moses received from the Lord, what may very well be a working definition of what it means to love God and one another.
When we turn to Exodus 20, we'll see that those Ten Commandments teach us that to show love, first to our heavenly Father, we are to worship no other gods, ie., idolatry in any form, and to keep His commandments. We also see that to love others we basically are to honor our parents, stop murdering, committing adultery, stealing, lying and coveting. Simple, huh?
Read this on your own for more detail and ask the pertinent questions about loving God and others. Questions like, if I truly loved God would I...continue living in my favorite sin? Or in loving another, would I steal from him? Would I murder (even someone's reputation?), would I commit adultery against, lie to or covet another and his things? Let God be our Judge.
