What is Love?

By Paula Williamson, guest writer

What Is Love?

Children confuse love with parents giving them what they want. Youth confuse love with lust. Some of us get our definition of love from Hollywood or the world around us, but God is the source of love.

It Is Written

1 JOHN 4:7-8 Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

JOHN 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.

CORINTHIANS 13: 4-7 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. ⁵ It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, ⁶ it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ it keeps every confidence, it believes all

things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love vs Lust

Lust is an uncontrollable desire for power, money, or physical or sexual pleasure. Its focus is self-gratification. It has nothing to do with love. The scripture goes so far as to say that the only way we can love is to know God. We have some confused thinking in our world. There are two great books at coadwordbook.com, written for preschoolers, elementary students, and teens, that explain the difference between lust and love. We need to teach our children well!

Prayer, Lord. Your word says You are love. We are sorry for confusing lust with love. The world has misrepresented You, and imperfect parents and teachers have misrepresented You. Most of us do not know You for who You really are. Forgive us. We come to You today, asking You to teach us who You really are and to help us know and experience true love.

Takeaway

God is love.