Enduring Love

As a ten year old boy at 4-H Camp in western Kentucky I fell in love for the first time. When I saw that little blonde haired girl my heart began to beat double time, and I knew that she was the one for me. I had one week and only one week to win her heart, but being inexperienced at the love game as well as being terribly shy I had a mountain of a problem to climb. That romance that I hoped to cultivate never got off the ground. I think by the end of the week the only thing I had found out about my true love was that she was from Paducah Kentucky.

Over the years I figured out some things about romancing the ladies. I gained an understanding about what love really is, and I did eventually find my true love the summer after I graduated from high school. I have made many mistakes, but the one thing that has kept my wife and me together is the love we share in Jesus. Dr. Jack Graham said, “Physical attraction brings people together, but spiritual affection (between a man and a woman) keeps them together.” A sexual, physical love will not solidify a relationship. A phial or social love is not strong enough to endure the storms that are bound to come. It is only agape love, the love found in Jesus, that will keep a marriage strong despite the threatening messes that one or both partners make.

What is this agape love? Why is spiritual love so important? Here’s why! "If is speak with the tongues of men and angels, and don’t have love I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." Some marriages are gong shows. They are not funny. They are tragic and are void of agape love. According to 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, people do all sorts of things in the name of a false love  and end up with a big fat zero. They can be incredibly knowledgeable, have faith that moves mountains, give away all they have, and even offer up their lives, but if they don’t have the love of Jesus they have nothing, amount to nothing and are nothing.

The love that we have in Jesus is lasting, it never ends. Couples end their marriage saying that they have fallen out of love. That is impossible if their marriage was truly based on the love of Jesus because the love that he ordains never ends. Couples should regularly read verses 4 through 7 of 1 Corinthians 13 and evaluate their marriage using this definition or the guidelines for true, lasting love. Love will find each of you being patient, kind, humble, never arrogant or rude. If the two of you demonstrate true love you will not be selfish, constantly irritable or resentful. You will not keep secrets about the wrongs you have done, but be honest and open always celebrating the truth that insures a trusting relationship. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures  all things.”

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”