True Love

Do you remember that old song by Tina Turner entitled, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” It was a secular song about sexual indiscretions, with an attempt to justify those indiscretions, by asking the question, what does love have to do with anything? However, when we look at it from the Christian perspective, love has everything to do with everything. 

It is the story of love that fills the pages of Scriptures; the most exciting and truest kind of love; the love of God for a fallen world. It is this type of love that is described in the very next line of the poem:

Line 19: God truly loves you, He sent Jesus for thee, and if you receive Him, you’ll live eternally. 

We have talked about this love in the last three or four blogs. It is an exhaustless subject. And just in case you think that this love didn’t show up until the New Testament, then read these passages from the Old Testament to prove to yourself that God has always been ‘crazy about you.

1) The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Jeremiah 31:3

2) Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? ² For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. ³ He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. ⁴ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. ⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. ⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. ⁸ He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. ⁹ And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. ¹⁰ Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. ¹¹ He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. ¹² Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:1-12

(This entire chapter of Isaiah describes the cruel treatment that Jesus would receive, when He came on His mission of love for fallen humankind. He fulfilled every Scripture exactly.)

And then when you come to the New Testament, you have the classic love of God Scripture:

3)  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 And

4) Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace… II Thessalonians 2:16

With careful reading, it is easy to see the truth of the poetry line, which expresses God’s love and Jesus’ mission.  Then after you see that expression of love, you can’t help but to love and praise Him. I’ve learned to do just that!

All Scriptures are taken from the KJV – King James Version Bible

First posted on the Internet 12/9/16

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