LOVE

Love

A Secret Only Known To Those Truly In Love

LOVE

L is for losing oneself in the other

O is overcoming the fear of forever

V is for vowing ones heart to its favor

E is enduring the pains of together

We approach one of the most misunderstood words in the English language: LOVE. At times we abuse it, at times we accuse it. At times we misuse it, and sometimes we try to refuse it. It is claimed by many but possessed by few. It’s a language that can be spoken by all but truly learned by a remnant. It is often consciously and unconsciously misrepresented by its counterfeits such as lust, infatuation, passion, attraction, etc. However, none of these in itself is love or should be substituted for it.

Love is far deeper and of a more noble character than any of these. Though not always recognized or admitted, it is the most precious and valuable piece of property one can ever possess. If you never fully own any other property in this world besides true love, you are richer than the richest person, with his/her riches in lands and gold, without love. It is more precious than the finest piece of silver or the purest piece of gold. Love is more valuable than the most modern gift of civilization or the most enticing drift of deviation. Love has no price tag. It cannot be bought, neither can it be sold.

Let’s reason for a moment together. Have you ever truly been in love? Were you trying to love or were you trying to show love? Does love bring action or is love an action word? Were you acting because you had love or were you loving? Would you say that it’s better to tell your beloved that you love him/her or that you have love for him/her? Actually, what I am asking you is whether you see love as a noun or a verb? Let’s reason a little further; is true love found in the physical, the emotion, the logic, the heart, or all of them? Does true love last forever or for a few years? In fewer words, what is love, where does it live, and how long does it last?

Today’s lovers or so-called, find it very easy to use the term: “I LOVE YOU.” However, many, if not most of the times, what they mean is “I LUST YOU.” You look very physically attractive; you have appealed to my physical and emotional, and I would like both physics and emotions to meet. What if that outer beauty were to be marred or distorted severely or that luscious body were to be partly destroyed, could you still, to the same degree, say: “I LOVE YOU?” What if you were deprived or denied the physical encounter because of the other person’s personal values until you prove yourself worthy of or qualified to handle the other person’s love or total commitment? Could you say to the same degree that you have said before: “I LOVE YOU?” If your answers could not be in the affirmative, you have failed the test of true love. What you have or have had is infatuation: An immediate physical urge for the physical and emotional to meet for immediate gratification. Most likely after that goal is reached, your love that you thought you had would have diminished until you are in need of such physical and emotional encounters again.

Another term that is frequently used by today’s lovers is “I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU.” The word ‘fell’ implies a helpless accident. The word ‘in,’ combined with the verb ‘fell’ imply that the person just happens to find himself inside of love without knowing how he got there or actively initiating any steps to get there.

Though true love permeates the entire portion of the human makeup, in its effects, controlling and in a real sense, uncontrollable, it is wise to take note that love operates from a base and that base is not without but within. The physical or the outer portion of the human makeup is simply an instrument used by love to express its true nature.

Love’s real home for the human being is within. It settles for no other place but the central and most vulnerable portion of the human members, the heart. This heart is not referring to where the blood is pumped. The part of the human that is under discussion here is the seat of the most vulnerable sector of the immaterial aspect of  the human makeup, which is referred to as the heart. Just as love is intangible and immaterial in its true nature, so is the heart that love resides in.

Love’s most treasured throne is the heart. If anything falls when love is a reality, it is the heart. Along with the heart goes the resistance and everything else that follows. If falling in love means that after the heart goes, everything goes with it, the statement is well in order. But if the term means that your entire being, especially the physical and the emotions have been spanned by love without an accurate assurance of it residing in the heart, necessarily, I believe that you are yet to experience true love.

To illustrate this truth let’s go back to a statement that the wise man, Solomon made: “LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH...” (Solomon 8:6). Death is stronger than the strongest person there is. No matter how strong you or any other person is, death will conquer. The strongest person who existed (Samson) was conquered by death. Also the most powerful of eternity, Jesus Christ -- ‘LOVE’ conquered Him to death. I would even take this a little further to say that love can be seen as stronger than death because love not only conquered life, the life of God’s Son, but the same love conquered Him to death to conquer death (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).

Now, is it wrong to say: “I LOVE YOU OR I FALL IN LOVE?” The aim is to point out that when one says: ”I LOVE YOU” which is making love a verb, it should be an expression that is voiced only after complete assurance is arrived at concerning the fact that: “I HAVE LOVE FOR YOU.” Love is first possessed as a noun then expressed as a verb. And believe me, if and when you possess love as a noun, you won’t have any problem expressing it as a verb. You would not have to try to love your treasure, you would have loved him/her in that YOU WOULD HAVE POSSESSED LOVE FOR HIM/HER. It is either you have it or you don’t. To feel or show it, you must have it. If the first is emphatic, the second is automatic.

Saying ‘I FALL IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE’ is not necessarily incorrect if it is done after unmistaken identification is made of the existence of love living within. It should not be just a submission to the physical and emotional desires without logic or reasoning. Physical and emotional desires arrive very often but only last for a while at a time. Love lives on even when those or all else die or evaporate. Love never ceases (1 Corinthians 13:8).

The real question at hand is, what is the real definition of love? Can it be defined, explained, or only illustrated? Here are some striking questions to consider: How large is love? How wide is it? How about depth -- how deep is love? What about strength -- how strong is it? What about length, how long is it? If you have answers to these questions, there is a question about your possession or perception of real love. If you can truthfully say that your love is immeasurable, then you just might have a chance at true possession or perception.

Love is an invisible but real plant that is only seen by its fruits. Like God, love is never seen, but its existence and effects are unavoidable. The possessor cannot help but recognize its presence as well as its effects.

Now, does love seem like a noun or a verb to you? Should you act love or should you act because you have it? For love to be lasting, it must be existing as a noun before it can be expressed as a verb. Love is a state of heart rather than a state of mere emotions. You should not be trying to love once it is born. If love were born, you could do nothing else but to love. In actuality, once love is existing in your heart, you would find yourself trying

unsuccessfully not to show love. LOVE -- you cannot hide it. If you have it for someone, it will burst itself out in your every word and deed.

To attribute love to an external force or entity that enters a person at the point of its conception, whether it is considered to be a living or dead entity, is to ascribe a sense of spookiness or even cultic nature to love. The safest and most reasonable view of love, in relation to its origin or operation, is that the soil or potential for love is a part of every human being. Sowing the right seeds and giving it the right fertilization, these seeds will germinate into a real healthy and blooming attribute of the human makeup.

The author sees love as a distinctly living but inseparable entity in and of the human makeup. The intensity and magnitude of its consuming effect are dependent on the level of development or how strong and healthy its roots have been allowed to take affect in the person. If the right type and measure of the laws of cultivation are executed, the recipient can hardly help but just becoming more aware of its development.

Love is distinct in that it is identifiable distinctly from the other qualities in a person. In its true character, it is unavoidable. It is progressive in its development to the extent that the more developed it is, the more of a force it is to contend with. This is especially a reality when one tries to deny, or destroy it.

It is living because for it be a growing entity, it must be alive to grow. The differences between the development of true love in a human being and pregnancy are {1} at some point, pregnancy becomes separable while the existence of love is inseparable but suppressible and {2} pregnancy is gender selecting but love is not.

It is of great importance that I point out here that the true test of love is measured by the level of giving that one produces. ”For God so loved the world that He gave” (St. John 3:16). “But God proved His love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ gave His life for us” {Romans 5:8}. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man would give his life for his friend” {St. John I5:13}. If you want to find out if a person really loves you, check to see if that person wants to give to you more than he/she wants to receive from you. If that person only wants to take from you or take more than he/she wants to give, then your answer is clear, that person needs to experience a dosage of true love.

Though it occupies the most brilliant as well to the least brilliant of the humankind, love is the most foolish giver of all dispensations. Its logic is the most illogical of all available reasoning. Love sees what no eye can see, hears what no ear can hear, feels what no hand can touch and frees what no key can unlock. Yet, what eyes have seen, love may not see. What ears have heard, love may not hear. What hands have touched, love may not feel. What takes great master keys to open love may not walk into.  First Corinthians thirteen, verses four through eight says love suffers long, and is kind. It envies not. It vaunts not itself and is not puffed up. It does not behave unseemly. It seeks not its own and is not easily provoked. It thinks no evil. It rejoices not in iniquity [failure or, wrong doing to or by its object] but rejoices in the truth [“indeception”]. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Be WARNED that TRUE LOVE LASTS FOREVER! The apostle Paul in first Corinthians thirteen and verse eight says that LOVE NEVER CEASES! It might wither and quail because of lack of proper nourishment or fertilization, but its roots never completely die out.

Love is a delightful and most valuable piece of possession. It is said that you shouldn’t try to hold on to God, you should let Him hold on to you; so is love. Therefore, don’t give up on your most valuable possession, pick it up again with proper treatment.

© Copyright 2004 By Gilbert James