LOVE - Is it give or take?

I was giving a lot of thought this week to what the difference is between real, true, love and well, you know, love. It's a word that we apply to everything from hot dogs to Jesus. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. So how do we explain the difference? What is the real thing?

It occurred to me that so often things or people that we "love" are things or people that we take from. The pleasure derived or the benefit to us causes us to "love" that thing or person. It's very self-centric. Being a pastor, it has been my experience to ask prospective young couples to be married, "why do you love _____?" The answers are always self-centric. Typically, the responses are; "They make me feel wonderful", "he/she does so many things for me", "I love the way take care of me", so on and so forth. The answers reveal the heart. The answers essentially say, "it is all about me."

God gives us a picture of what true love is all about. In perhaps the most memorized passage of scripture in all the Bible, John 3:16, the picture is very different.

"For God so loved the world that He gave..."

There it is right there. God's love gives, it doesn't take. God the Father gave us Jesus, His only begotten Son. He gave us forgiveness, He gave us eternal life. Real, true, love gives.

What a contrast to the world around us. It's all about what we can take from each other. In marriage it is all about how the other can please us. When our spouse no longer pleases us, we discard them. Real love? Not at all.

God's love gives and gives and gives. It never gives up! Maybe we ought to examine our "love" for others and be honest with ourselves about how much taking we do as opposed to giving. Real love gives.