What is love?

What a rush! We've just had a wonderful week of teaching by Dean Sherman about Relationships and Love and Spiritual Warfare. Dean is a world travelling Youth With A Mission speaker and has worked as a full time missionary for YWAM for more than 40 years. He brings a wealth of experience and insight and it was a pleasure to sit and listen to his insightful teaching taken straight out of the Word of God!

He talked a lot about love, and I firmly agree with him that love is our message. And the world needs love. The world is desperate for love. There is no such thing as a human being who isn't longing for love. From the hardest criminal to the sweetest grandma there is a need to be loved and love.

And God has given us the answer to the question that many authors, singers, movie producers, etc. have made fortunes exploring their versions of: "What is love?" Most people say that they don't know...that it's too complicated to explain...that it's a warm feeling in your stomach....the impossible dream some might even call it?!!

John Gray, who has made millions writing about men and women apparently being from different planets, gives this rather vague definition: "Love is a feeling directed at someone which acknowledges their goodness". Another author, Paramahansa Yogananda says this about love: "To describe love is very difficult, for the same reason that words cannot fully describe the flavor of an orange. You have to taste the fruit to know its flavor. So with love."



But God is the Creator of love. "God is love", John tells us in his first letter (1.John 4:8), and God who is love gives us the definition of what love is in 1.John 3:16 (which corresponds very well with John's Gospel ch.3 verse 16!): "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers (and sisters)"

Laying down your life is love. Jesus loved all people at all times so much that he laid down his life for them. Jesus told his followers that he was the only one who could choose to end his life. It was Jesus's choice. It wasn't the Romans, the Jews or Satan who chose to kill Jesus. It was Jesus who, out of his love for you and I, chose to give up his life.

And laying down your life for another person will always (!) in all cultures, in all religions at all times be the highest measure of love. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends", Jesus said. And it's a timeless, universal truth!

We are called to love because God loved us first. And we can only love in sacrifice and service. Nobody needs more talk about what love is. Nobody needs (Christian) theories. Nobody needs people who say one thing and do something completely different. We all need real love. And this is the kind of love that will change the world, nations, your city, families, relationships. Love is the answer to the world's problems. Love is the answer to my problems. But not any version of love. The love of Jesus Christ. The love that has transformed and is transforming me! Do your friends, colleagues, family members, yourself know this kind of love?

Thank God I'm loved!

Love, Torben