What's Love Got To Do With It?

Do you remember that song? What's love got to do with it? What is love but a second hand emotion. That is the only phrase I really remember from that song. And it really wasn't about love but lust.
This is February, the month people are talking about and celebrating love.There will be flowers, candy and gifts given. Many will go out to dinner with the one they love.  But what do we really know of love.

Our assistant director of missions Dr. Harold Dalton asked me and Roger once how wegot  married. We only dated 2 and 1/2 months before we married. He asked if it was love at first sight. Before I could even think, I said no it was lust at first sight. What do two twenty somethings really know about love?

This culture is so emotion oriented that we can't tell the difference between lust and love. I remember as a twenty something, hearing a television program that stuck with me. It said a great deal about love. It was not a Christian program. It was All In The Family; not a program I watched on a regular basis. But for whatever reason I was listening that day. Edith, Archie Bunker's wife, was talking to her daughter about marriage and divorce. What she said was, people today want to leave when the feeling of love goes away. If they would stick around long enough that feeling comes back. (That is of course a paraphrase. I don't remember the exact words) It made an impact on me.

Of course the Word of God has much to say on the subject of love. And it is only through the grace of Jesus Christ we begin to truly understand what it entails. After 10 years of marriage Roger went through periods of severe depression which lasted for 10 more years. Through it I learned that emotions will lie to you and the Word of God is really all you can trust. And I began to really learn about love.

God's love is so action oriented. He died for me! If that doesn't say love I don't know what does. The Word tells me He is Love! 1 John 4:7 "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love".

Love is action. It comes from your will. And of course it comes from loving and knowing God. I was raised in a Pentecostal background. I believe in the gifts of the Spirit. But some where along the way I missed about the fruit of the Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is our teacher and He began to teach me that while the gifts are important, God wants to see fruit in our lives and the number one fruit of the Spirit is LOVE! And we can't bear fruit unless we abide (live) in Him, John 15.

After twenty seven years of marriage, I have learned how to love my husband. It hasn't always been easy, it hasn't always been fun. I have prayed on many occasions for the Lord to help me be the wife God wants me to be, not what Roger or I think I should be. I have failed and succeeded and failed again.There were times I wanted to leave and screamed at God that I did not want to live the rest of my life as it was at that moment. But I made a choice, not of emotion but of my will. In the marriage covenant I made a commitment not just to Roger but to God. I choose to honor my commitment to God come what may. And God has proven so so faithful. Roger has been healed of the depression. Our marriage has gotten stronger. I can say today, I love my husband!

I am changing to the songs title to what's God's love got to do with it? EVERYTHING!!!