(This is from a group devotion I did at our Valentine's Day party at FBC Youth!)What is love? It's a question that poets and songwriters specialize in, and the rest of us just kind of fumble our way around. When it comes to what love really is, most of us just best-guess our way into it, and then either desperately cling to what we believe "love" is or move on to something better when we realize that what we held wasn't really love at all.
The problem is that we have no reference point for what love is really all about. It's sort of like if I had a blank canvas and asked you to paint it. You would ask "what color do you want me to paint it." I would respond "Philly. Paint it Philly." After you made sure you heard me right, you would realize that Philly is not a color you'd ever heard of before. If you went ahead and painted that canvas the color you thought I might be talking about when I said "Philly", you would be only guessing your way through it.
If I told you "Philly" was actually a shade of red, here's what might have happened. You might have made a really good guess. You may have picked out a shade of red, or pink, or even orange - which isn't too far off. Your canvas may look a lot like what I intended it to be, but odds are it isn't exactly right. More likely is that you were way off - maybe you went for a blue, or yellow, or off-white, or black. The point is that you may have convinced yourself that "Aha! This is what love - sorry - Philly is, so I'm going to paint it this color!" but the truth is that you aren't even close to being right.
The point is this. God made you relational. He made you to love - Him first, then others. And because He designed you in a very specific way, He has a very specific plan for you when it comes to romance, sexuality, and love. When was the last time you actually asked God to define what love is for you?
1 John 3:16 lays it out perfect - "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us..."
Here's the deal: You simply CANNOT know what love is without knowing Jesus. You may best-guess your way in to something that looks a lot like what God intends love to look like. But without having a reference point - a compass that points true north when it comes to love - you'll never fully live in the amazing story God wants to write with your life.
So do you know what love is? Do you know who Jesus is and what He did for humanity?
"Greater love has no one than this..." - John 15:13. Look it up and read the rest on your own.
Happy Valentine's Day!
- Tim