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Perfect Love
I have thought of the ignorance in the world about this word “LOVE”. I have thought of the pain and misery, the havoc and the insecurity that the ignorance of the right knowledge of this word has caused. But I have also thought about the mystery and the worth of this LOVE. I am poised to write on this word, at least to clear the foggy mist obstructing our vision and limiting our understanding of this word.
In this our world today, we always take things to the extreme and forgetting the main reason why these things exist. Most times we tend to misuse these things; and when I mean things, it could be anything, even words. But I want to emphatically base this little writing on LOVE-Perfect Love.
This is a word that is not voluminous when it comes to the number of letters it has. But when it comes to definitions, applications, interpretations, etc., it is very wide.
Let us start by defining love because this is one way we have got it all mixed up and confusing. From the stand point of the dictionary, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defined love as: “A strong feeling of deep affection for somebody or something, especially a member of your family or a friend”. Now this has to do with “affection”-the kind of love one shows to a brother, mother, father, sister, cousin, friend, etc., it also defined love as “a strong feeling of affection for somebody that you are sexually attracted to”. Now this has to do with “romance”-when one is romantically and sexually attached to someone; this can be the opposite sex or same sex-what we know today as gayness which is the state of being homosexual. I see romance as “caring too much not to leave any help un-rendered, any tears un-wiped, anything undone”. “Paying great attention to little details; making someone feel special”-Faith C. Chimezie. This is romance! The dictionary has only succeeded in making known to us only one kind or aspect of love and it has also succeeded in leaving us in the dark on the other kinds of love. Love has other kinds and angles to it which will be unraveled during the course of this writing. In our world today, especially in my country; Nigeria that I know very well, a guy cannot casually say these three-word sentence, “I love you” to a girl without her mind connecting to lots of wrong signals just because of what she knows love to be, and vice versa. Same goes to the same-sex, a guy cannot casually say the same three-word sentence without thinking of 14 years in jail. Wrong meanings and impressions about this word has really gone wide and wild.
Well, that is by-the-way. We’re still on the meaning of love and love has got its true definition, interpretation and application biblically and that is where I will base this topic on. The bible in the book of 1st Corinthians, from verse 1 to 13 of the 13th chapter says from the Message Bible (MSG): “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.”
Embedded in this scriptural or biblical passage is the: “Primacy of love”-this speaks about the importance and the place of love in our hearts and in this world; the “Profile of love”-this speaks about the stance of love; the things that make love what it is today; and the “Permanency of love”-this speaks about the eternity of love. A great man; Bishop Moses E. Peter said “Faith grows, Hope grows but Love abides forever”. And no wonder the bible said that “amongst faith, hope and love, love is the greatest”. As a matter of fact; chapter 14:1 of the same 1Corinth. says “Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it--because it does…”(MSG). The New Living Translation (NLT) puts it this way, “Let love be your highest goal!...” This statement is more like an order or a command because it ended with an exclamation mark.
This same biblical book called the Holy Bible tells us in the book of 1st John 4:8 and 4:16 that “God is love”. Have you ever sat down one day and thought of a pure, genuine, best and sincere reason why God loves you? If it is by human power, beauty, perfect body build, nice hair style, the way we praise and worship Him, how much we pray and how much we try to impress Him, then we have no reason at all and we are not even close to being worthy of receiving this love of God. But it might interest you to know that God loves you just this single reason written in the bible that God is love; it is His nature to love, it is one of the things that makes Him God and without it, His being God will not be complete. This is like when someone has no other choice than to keep doing one thing over and over again. That is God for you!
It might also interest you to know that one of the kinds of love is AGAPE in the Greek. And this means, “To love in a social and moral sense-that love that comes with benevolence and charity”. This is what we know today as an unconditional love which is very much correct because loving in a social and moral sense is that love that is not corrupt; it is pure, sincere, true, real, from the heart, and godly. When the bible says, “the greatest is love, love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemy/pray for your enemy, submit to your husband and love your wife, etc.” it is talking about AGAPE; for no reason, just love them; they’ve hurt you so bad, just love them; your wife is messing up and not respecting you as should, just love her. It is unconditional remember? So live by it. As a matter of fact; a Persian proverb says “love me when I least deserve it because that’s when I really need it”. Someone asked a question and said “Those that love tends to get hurt by it. Does that mean that love is hurt?” I answered and said, “For the fact that God is love does not mean that love is God. When love becomes (a) god, then it becomes an idle that one worships. If you feel that love has hurt you so bad then check your love life, you have not been dealing with the right kind of love-AGAPE.
This will bring us to the next kind of love which is PHILEO in the Greek. This is where we get the words PHILOSOPHY-love for wisdom, PHILADELPHIA-brotherly love, PHILARGURIA-love of money, and so on. Now, PHILEO means “affection, personal attachment”. This is that love that has to do with emotions, feelings, imaginations, and romance as the dictionary will have it. For instance; when people say “I love him because he is caring, romantic, because of his height, because of her stature or shape, because of his money etc.” This love happens when there’s a reason behind it. Without those reasons, there will be no love really, because those reasons are what kindles or arouses the feelings we tend to have. Like when the bible says in Eph. 5:22 and Col. 3:18 “Wives “submit” yourselves unto your own husbands”. That submit there interprets, PHILEO. So the scripture is simply telling wives to submit (PHILEO) to your husbands because they love (AGAPE) you. Like I said before that PHILEO is love given in return for something done. E.g. I love him because he loves me. (I PHILEO him because he AGAPEs me). This is where humans have based their entire life on, on the PHILEO kind of love, and that’s why we keep getting hurt by each passing day because it deals with feelings and emotions. I do tell people that, “for the fact that I have feelings for you doesn’t mean that I love you”. Why? Because feelings sometimes lie, they fade and they also change. But genuine love doesn’t in any way lie, fade or change. So if I love you (the AGAPE kind of love), I will not hurt you and if you genuinely love me, I will not get hurt. There are other words for love in the Greek and Hebrew but let’s make do with these ones for now.
I want to give you by acronyms what genuine love means and its applications but before I go into that, here are some quotes about love.
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A little child was asked, “What is love?” Here was her answer. “Love is when mummy reads you bed time stories. But true love is when she doesn’t skip any pages”.
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Genuine love is not a matter of affection, but decision-Bishop Moses E. Peter.
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The greatest happiness in life is the conviction that you are loved-Victor Hugo
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You in the body (of the Kingdom) are a mystery to others in the world because of love- Bishop Moses E. Peter.
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God loves you not because you are lovable but because God is Love- Bishop Moses E. Peter.
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You don’t need to like everything about me to love me- Bishop Moses E. Peter.
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Faith grows, Hope grows but Love abides forever- Bishop Moses E. Peter.
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A singer was about mounting the stage to perform but before she went up-stage, a sick man in the bay sent her a note. And it reads, “Dear Mary, a bell is not a bell until you ring it, a song is not a song until you sing it, love is not there in the heart to stay-love is not love until you give or show it”. This made the lady sing with passion and love and the people were touched
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Love me when I least deserve it because that when I really need it-Persian Proverb
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You cannot practice genuine love without Faith or Trust.
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If you live in love, you live outside the box of human existence-Bishop Moses E. Peter.
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Love that does not aim for the good of others is not love.
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Love is not a fight but it is something worth fighting for-Warren Barfield (in one of his songs).
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Love is not a place to come in and go as we please, but it’s a house we enter in and commit to never leave-Warren Barfield (in one of his songs).
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To some, love is a word that they can fall into, but when they are falling out, keeping that word is hard to do. But love is more than just words-Warren Barfield (in one of his songs).
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Love is just like light, no matter how much you try to hide it, it can’t be hidden-Prince Joseph Moses.
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The letters of love are the four pillars holding the universe-Prince Joseph Moses.
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Anyone who goes to hell shunned God’s love- Bishop Moses E. Peter.
Now on acronyms, this is what love does. Love:
L-lavishes its riches on its object;
O-overcomes obstacles on its way;
V-ventures into the unknown;
E-endures till the end.
Knowing and living by this, there’s no way that you will not feel and enjoy the effect of this LOVE.
Now this is what God’s love should be to you:
God’s love is Life; you should live by it;
God’s love is an Ocean; you should swim in it;
God’s love is a Vision; you should see with it;
God’s love is Everlasting; you should last with it.
Knowing that God cares for you this much by making available for you this manner of love, you shouldn’t live in fear of anything; not even in your past nor of the things you think you don’t have. God’s love makes provision your past, present and future-for your entire lifetime.
This next acronym speaks more about the height of love. God loves you:
L-lavishly;
O-openly;
V-verily; and
E-extremely.
This is the height of God’s love; He never withholds any blessing from us as long as they are due for us. He just lavishes these blessings on us.
His love is open. True love is not hidden because it can’t even be hidden. God’s love is sure when you use the word “verily”. It means “in a completely truthful way” according to the dictionary. But when the bible uses “verily”, it means sure, assuredly, in fact; it can be described as “AMEN” (So it is). Do you now see that God is not joking about this thing called love? And His love is to the extreme. This means, it has no limit or boundary; it is eternal so just go ahead and enjoy it!
True love is:
L-long-lasting; L-lasting;
O-overcoming; O-original;
V-vying (to obtain perfection); V-vital;
E-existing. E-eternal/Endless.
God’s love:
L-loads me with benefits;
O-offers me hope;
V-vanquishes my fears;
E-ennobles & Elevates my life.
No one can truly and rightfully live with all these meanings to love and still complain of a hurting life.
It still disturbs me that in this our world today, we have decided to look away from the benefits and the Perfectness of this love that can make the difference in our lives, instead we chose to:
Leave love L-languishing in this world;
Leave her (love) in O-obscurity;
Rip her of her V-vigor; and
Strip her of her E-essence.
For this single reason, a boy wrote a ‘love note’ to his girl-friend and here’s what it says, “If the world was like Sahara desert, I will crawl on the hot sand to get to you. If the world was the Atlantic Ocean, I don’t mind swimming through the shark-infested ocean to be by your side and I don’t mind fighting the dragons to reach you. But my dear, I will see you on Thursday if it doesn’t rain.
So tell me, what do you make out of this? Love that is full of words but lacks action is not true love. When the bible says that “Faith without works is dead”, so is love also. Love requires actions, proves. It might not be tangible but it should not remain abstract-a thing of the mind.
So I urge all of us, let us come back to our senses and embrace this great virtue, wind of communion and relationship that has happened to us and to this world. I described the letters of love as the four pillars holding the world, because it was out of love that this world was created; it was out of love that we were saved-John. 3:16. Love is the reason for our existence so if we throw it all away, we will be left with nothing. But perishing will be our gain and our essence of living. I’m sure we don’t want that!
