"All you need is love"

The Beatles' song says it and Jackie DeShannon's song says it too: "What the World Needs Now is Love". Pop culture is full of music and movies that both explore and exploit our appetite for love. But what does the word mean to most people? Our sexualized culture has us associate love with affection, attraction or passion. Hollywood's depiction of love is often just a picture of people getting naked in bed together.

We need to redefine the true meaning of the word love.

John 3:16 says "For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." In the biblical sense of the word, love is sacrificial, outward-bound and has an enduring quality.

In the Bible's love chapter--1 Corinthian 13, we find this description: "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."

Love like this is rare but that's how God loves us. When I realize how much he puts up with in loving me, my heart enlarges a little making room for others. God's love is supernaturally perfect and it is transferrable. We have to first receive it and then we know how to turn around and love others the same way.