Love As an Independent Verb

Yesterday my 2-year-old nephew asked my mom (his grandma) why she was going to visit him. Her reply was that she loved him. My mom is a cruel person. So, I wondered if she even knew what it meant to truly love someone. This question led me to wonder what love was as an independently standing verb. I know what actions love performs, but I wanted to know what it meant to love someone like my mom had said to my nephew without showing love’s actions.

I realized that love is when you value someone so much that you treat that person well i.e. be kind, patient, forgiving, humble, etc to preserve and cherish that person’s life.

In a Bible study for Advent last Christmas, George Whitfield explains that obedience to God’s commandments comes from an outpouring of gratitude for the love of God. This outpouring in turn comes out as a love for the life God gives.

Love is when we realize that every human has some type of value. All the actions of love like kindness, patience, etc come when we esteem a person enough that we do not want to hurt someone. We understand that each person has a reason for God giving that person life. Without this appreciation, love is not true, but simply pretentious politeness.

Just like Jesus came to give life, not destroy it (John 10:10), so we should give life too. God is the god of the living, not the dead (Mark 12:27). It is like a pastor at revival once said, “Evil spelled backward is live. Evil takes life; everything of God gives life.”

#love #life #outpouringofgratitude