Not just Valentine cards that come from mankind's common understanding, but the Bible itself has much to say about the heart. Jeremiah tells us that the "heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." David, in Psalm 139, says, "Search me, O God, and know my heart." Proverbs commands, "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart...;" Luke 8:15 tells us, "On the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep [it], and bring forth fruit with patience"; and Luke writes in Acts 2:37 "Now when they heard [this], they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men [and] brethren, what shall we do?"
To answer the question, "What is true love?" the last place we should look is to psychologists. They are very good at explaining love away by giving us a psychological definition but very short on what we need to know. We need rather to consult God's Word. True love comes only from God, as we yield to Him and allow Him to pour His love through us to others. "We love him, because he first loved us," (1 Jn 4:19); "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).
None of us is the wellspring of love. We are at best empty vessels that He can fill with His love and make us conduits of that love to others. Many of us are too full of ourselves to have any room left for loving God or genuinely loving others. It doesn't have to be this way. We can make it a continual prayer: "Lord, help me to love You with all of my heart, mind, and soul. Then pour Your love through me to others."
True love is God's love and is described like this:
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love [is] strong as death; jealousy [is] cruel as the grave: the coals thereof [are] coals of fire, [which hath a] most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if [a] man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned [rejected with disdain]. (Song 8:6-7)
Dave Hunt, TRUE LOVE - PART ONE
To answer the question, "What is true love?" the last place we should look is to psychologists. They are very good at explaining love away by giving us a psychological definition but very short on what we need to know. We need rather to consult God's Word. True love comes only from God, as we yield to Him and allow Him to pour His love through us to others. "We love him, because he first loved us," (1 Jn 4:19); "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).
None of us is the wellspring of love. We are at best empty vessels that He can fill with His love and make us conduits of that love to others. Many of us are too full of ourselves to have any room left for loving God or genuinely loving others. It doesn't have to be this way. We can make it a continual prayer: "Lord, help me to love You with all of my heart, mind, and soul. Then pour Your love through me to others."
True love is God's love and is described like this:
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love [is] strong as death; jealousy [is] cruel as the grave: the coals thereof [are] coals of fire, [which hath a] most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if [a] man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned [rejected with disdain]. (Song 8:6-7)
Dave Hunt, TRUE LOVE - PART ONE
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