Let’s go back in time… Well, not that far…only to 1984! (No comments from the very young bunch here!)
1984 was a year that made history! Did you know that? 🙂
Do you know what the single greatest event of 1984 was? I met my prince charming! I am sure that December 22, 1984 there was a huge tremble throughout the whole world…the stars shined more brightly than ever before…the flowers smelled more aromatic than ever…and I found my man!
In 1984, there was a new song that I have recently revisited. One of my favorite Christian Musicians, Kathy Troccoli, has re-made it as a love song to the Lord. (too cute!) I love this song. You see, it was our song. (Well, one of them!) Do you remember the song I Want To Know What Love Is? Here are the words, go back to 1984 with me for a moment…
I Want To Know What Love Is…
Mick Jones (© 1984 Somerset Songs Publishing, Inc./ASCAP)
Gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I’m older
This mountain I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
Through the clouds I see love shine
It keeps me warm as life grows colder
In my life, there’s been heartache and pain
I don’t know if I can face it again
Can’t stop now I’ve traveled so far
To change this lonely life
CHORUS
I want to know what love is
I want You to show me
I want to feel what love is
I know You can show me
I’m gonna take a little time
A little time to look around me
I’ve got nowhere left to hide
Looks like Love has finally found me
In my life there’s been heartache and pain
I don’t know if I could face it again
Can’t stop now I’ve traveled so far
To change this lonely life.
CHORUS
I want to know what love is
I want You to show me
I want to feel what love is
I know You can show me
Now, just in case you have not figured out by this point, I am a hopeless romantic. I love LOVE! However, this song was our song for several reasons other than just because it was a mushy love song. First, I really wanted to KNOW what love was so I could love my man, completely to death! Secondly, I loved this song because it carried my testimony of my quite short and unsuccessful track of love that I wanted to change—
In my life there’s been heartache and pain
I don’t know if I could face it again
Can’t stop now I’ve traveled so far
To change this lonely life.
My pain was caused by many factors. First, my hardness of heart. I would not open my heart to anyone past a glimpse. I was truly “saving” my heart for the “perfect” guy. Little did I know that in boxing my heart off, I was really hardening it to a point that we (my prince and me!) would have years of undoing in order for me to find real trust, security, and complete abandonment. Bits of the hard heart I was “protecting” were chipped off, even though I thought my heart was “safe and secure” instead of vulnerable, open, and surrendered. Even when I found my darling my heart was safe and secure even through many years of our MARRIAGE! What I really wanted in our relationship, I could not have because I was protecting mySELF at all costs, even at the expense of KNOWING what love could be in the fullness of God’s plan for me.
Love was also a tough thing for me because I had witnessed first-hand the break-up of my parent’s marriage right in the middle of my dating years before I was ready to begin my own marriage. I assure you that my parents went to every extreme to protect me from any bad influence or possible ramification that could result from a divorce, it just did not work. Regardless of our high hopes, I have to warn that it seldom does! The heartache and pain of their lives naturally poured into the deep-dark recesses of my own heart. “Leaving my father and mother” and cleaving to this man of my dreams was a bit more difficult than anyone had ever cautioned. So, coming into marriage, my greatest need was perfectly described in this song, I Want To Know What Love Is.
What about you? Relate? Want to know what LOVE is? Just need for someone to show you?
You are not alone. We all deep-down want to know what love, real love, is like. I think that it is safe to say that few of us just KNOW what love is like, much less how to love others. Perhaps that is why we find God commanding the older women to purpose to teach the younger women how to love their husbands and children (Titus 2: 3-5).
We do not “naturally” know how to love. We must be taught. If we are not taught and mentored in love, we will miss the mark. We, like the woman at the well, want to find that soul satisfaction that cannot be met anywhere, by anybody but our loving Bridegroom. But, how? So, what does this love look like?
Let’s go to (I am sure you know which passage!) 1 Corinthians 13, the Bible’s Love Passage…
First Corinthians Love…
Now, let’s get the context of this passage. It is sandwiched in between the precious teaching of Paul about spiritual gifts and their use in the Body of Christ. We are in such need of this complete teaching. Of course, I am not going to dig into the Spiritual Gifts and ideas for using them in the Church today in this article. Knowing what our gifts are and how we can effectively use them to minister to one another is vital. It is one of the most important studies we can do as we step up to the call of God for our lives. However, every single gift, every single ministry within the body of Christ, is for the purpose of ministering LOVE to others.
The bottom line is not in “ministering” or “doing” for others, it is in loving God and loving others. When we do this, the rest comes in naturally. When we love God and others, we naturally use our gifts without any special effort on our behalf. However, we need to learn what Love is FIRST. We need to learn how to love the way God wants for us to love Him, others, and ourselves. I hate to admit it, but I am just like the Corinthian Church. I tend to get so wrapped up in what I am called to do that I simply forget that the main thing is love. I think that we all do. We forget that the main thing of the main thing is all boiled down to one very big thing that challenges us all…love.
When we learn how to really LOVE others, we learn how to impact our culture. When we get back to love, we will have a revival in our land that will rival that of the early church. But, that is only when we get back to Love, when we learn what love is. So, now, take a step-by-step look at 1 Corinthians 13 from the Amplified Version (this is SO good!)…
If I [can] speak with the tongues of men and even of angels but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God’s love for an in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpretation of the divine will and purpose), and understand all of the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody). Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing.
Hummm…convicting? Oh, yea! You know we can be busy doing all of the right feeling stuff—wearing the “right” clothes, reading the “right” version of the Bible, speaking with all of the “churchey” words that “show” we read our Bible through in a year EVERY year, going to church every time the doors are open, working our fingers to the bone at church, passing out gospel tracts door-to-door every single week, wearing our “What Would Jesus Do?” shirts and lapel pins, listening to our Christian music ONLY, eating our “good” Old Testament foods—have I missed anything? WELL, I MEAN THAT TOO! Yes, we can do all of our big check-list of “good” things, yet we can fail to do what we are specifically called, by God, to do.
Wonder what you are “supposed to do?” Wonder what rule of thumb you could have for judging what you should be about doing from day-to-day? When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus in order to try to trap Him, this was their very question. In fact, check out their entire conversation along these lines. They wanted a rule rather than a relationship. A list instead of love. You may have this same conversation with God yourself…
Then, one of them, which was a lawyer, asking Him a question, tempting him, and saying, ”Master, which is the great commandment (What is the main thing? The MOST important thing I am to do?) in the law? Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART, AND WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY MIND. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22: 34-40)
What IS the most important thing? Among all of the options of things that we *could* do, among all of the laws and commandments, which ONE THING is the most important? The greatest commandment of all? If we can get ONE thing down and cover all of the “bases,” what is it? LOVE!
Lord, I Want To Know What Love Is!
Now, are you with me crying out, “Lord! I Want To Know What Love Is?” Feel that soul-deep cry bursting forth? Well, beloved, God is so absolutely precious! He wants for us to LEARN FROM HIM what love is. He wants for us to experience FROM HIM a love that is true, complete, unconditional and never-ending. Then, He wants for us to pour forth this love into the lives of others.
But, WHAT IS LOVE??? Well, go back to 1 Corinthians 13 for perhaps the most specific description of God’s love that you will find, dwell on this one, it should keep us ALL busy for a while!
Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]… Continue to the last verse that I am sure you already know by heart… And so faith, hope, love abide [faith—conviction and belief respecting man’s relation to God and divine things; hope—joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love—true affection for God and man, growing out of God’s love for and in us], these three, but the greatest of these is love.
Does that cover it all or what? We could study this passage every day for the rest of our lives and NEVER get it all “down.” Don’t you agree? In fact, if you want ONE passage to choose as your “goal” for this year, I suggest this one! It is mine! I want to KNOW this kind of love. I want for those that are closest to me to KNOW this kind of love coming from ME. I want for the stranger who meets me for a moment to KNOW this kind of love!
The High Mark of Love…
As I said earlier, I have re-visited our old love song I Want To Know What Love Is. Deep down, I know that I will always have a higher mark to reach for in the area of love.
As I think of the tremendous command by Jesus, the great command, I am, quite frankly, overwhelmed. Loving GOD with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? That is all I have! Nothing is left to hold in reserve. This means loving God with complete abandonment! Having a “love story” with Him that began with coming as I was (In some pretty bad and sad shape here!). Growing more and more in love with Him every day throughout all eternity! Glory! Then, carrying this command into my relationships with those around me. My husband, children, friends, and total strangers all qualify as my neighbors. They are the ones I pour forth into as God fills me up. However, if we were to look at the real love God desires that we truly KNOW, we would see that His command begins first with loving ourselves, so we can then love others as we love ourselves.
God has been working this one in me STRONGLY in the recent days. My pastor taught a message series a while back on “Loving God with all of Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Body.” The passage above from Matthew was one of the references. As I sat there listening intently, God whispered into the depths of my whole being that He knew of my love for Him and others. He knew of my passion for Him and others. Yet, that love and passion for Him and others would never be as full and abundant until I learned how to love MYSELF! Well! Ugh! Couldn’t He make this a bit easier? Less convicting?
I don’t know about you, but I cannot match up to 1 Corinthians love for MYSELF each and every day. I am my very worse enemy! I am so hard on myself! And, of all of the people in the whole wide world, can’t I just take it? Love MYSELF!!! This is a REAL challenge. But, by the grace of God, I am trying to learn.
Then, if that is not enough of a challenge, I have a VERY difficult time bringing that 1 Corinthians love into my marriage. Not all the time, but the toughest times are when I face conflicts and differences with this man that I would like to MAKE perfect TODAY! Just reading 1 Corinthians 13 while thinking of whether my love truly makes the mark, gives me complete hibby-jibbies (I do not think that word is EVEN in the English Language…it is that BAD of a feeling!)! Oh, and then, the children…and my friends…and the whole world!
Oh, so this is what love is, no wonder God said that ALL can be summed up in this great command. It affects every area of our lives.
Before you become dismayed, overwhelmed, and just plain quit, I want to share with you that God is so very faithful! He does not expect for us to do this great work in ourselves. He just asks that we humbly offer ourselves as vessels before Him. In turn, He will pour all of His love throughout every part of us. His great love will uproot the pain and heartache that could stifle us for life. His great love will surgically remove the bitterness while flushing us full of an abundance of miraculous love. His great love will give us hope on our most despairing of days. His great love will give us a ministry of reconciliation toward those we hold most dearly and those we will not even remember their names or faces until eternity. His great love will pour on through us into all of those precious souls we are called to love. Hallelujah!
Need To Know What Love Is???
So, what about you?
Do you really NEED to know what love is? Are you crying out in pain… heartache… bitterness for just another chance at real love? Are you sitting there searching for a glimmer of hope? Are you in deep need of reconciliation between you and God? You and your spouse? You and your child? You and a friend? Or even with your own self?
Oh! You CAN KNOW what love is!
Seek to draw close to the Lord. Just ask Him one thing. Ask Him to show you one thing that you can KNOW before you even ask that He will show you from the very depths of your heart, soul, mind, and body. Ask Him, “Lord, I Want To Know What Love Is!”
Want to know ahead of time what He will do?
He will show you what love is in a very real, very personal, and mighty way. He will speak His sweet words of love into your ear. He will write upon your heart His love song for you. He will give you a love for those in your life who are very unlovely and difficult to love.
Oh, beloved, ask Him! I can tell you that the treasures of heaven are only waiting for your request!
So, go ahead!
Ask Him.
Ok! I will ask Him with you. Get ready for the adventure! Here goes…
“Lord, We Want To KNOW What Love Is!
We want for YOU to SHOW us!
We want to FEEL what Love is!
We KNOW that YOU can SHOW us!
Lord, We Want to KNOW What Love Is!”
