Love Really Is Enough (When We Know What Love Really Is)

Have you seen it in movies as often as I have? A father stands over his kids explaining how he and their mother were in love, But things change, and love wasn’t enough.

It breaks my heart how we learn love is merely affection — physical connection. Where our bodies decide whether love thrives.

The Righteous Brothers sang it in 1965: You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. I’d get down on my knees for you if you would only love me like you used to do. We had a love you don’t find every day. So, don’t let it slip away. Bring back that lovin’ feelin’ ‘cause it’s gone, gone, gone.

Cheap love never lasts because it’s not the real thing.

Genuine love is worth the price because its quality lasts forever. And true love isn’t drawn like a heart, it’s shaped like a cross.

---

What love is not.

---

For fun, let’s zoom in on a couple star verses that give us clues about what love is not. Namely, three verses from 1 Corinthians 13.

“Though I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Love isn’t something we say. Pledging promises, doling out compliments is not a means to love.

“And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Love is not based on performance. Forty faithful years of marriage to a spouse we incessantly find fault with — means there’s murder in our heart.

“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” We don’t earn love through sacrifice. Draining our time and money won’t fill our heart.

We can search for love, work for love, attempt to quicken love, but love cannot be achieved, only received.

We’re not born possessing the essence of love. We enter howling for the Presence of Love.

Love is exclusive to God, emptied on sinners.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 

There’s no such thing as low-cost love — because real love costs everything. What we conjured and collected about love from the backseat of childhood, the puny love we settled for during our 20’s and 30’s, every cover blurb listing 10 Ways to Keep Love Alive — must be torn from the pages of our past.

“If we empty our hearts of self, God will fill them with His love.” – Charles Spurgeon 

---

God — who is love — is Spirit.

---

Love is not physical attraction. Love is physical sacrifice.

Love is not two bodies joined at the lips. Love is offering our body to the lips of God.

God — who is love — is Spirit. HE holds when flesh fades. And whose flesh isn’t fading fast?

Heart shaped boxes, cream filled chocolates, diamonds and roses are poetic proposes. But who stays when we curse their name? Who sees us through our ugly attitude? Patiently pardons our harsh remarks? Looks fondly on our aging frame?

It’s easy enough to put on a face and hold our tongue, as if the way to love is denying who we are, when really, the first step toward love is admitting who we are.

And get this…love is not burdensome. It’s the overflow of a living, loving God given away.

Real love is untouchable, irreversible, and indestructible. Schools aren’t telling it. Magazines aren’t selling it. Our leaders won’t admit to it. The powers of hell can’t get rid of it.

I’m down on my knees for you, so you might understand Love like you wanted to. A love we don’t find any other way. Don’t let this moment slip away — ‘cause Love is infinitely more than a feeling, And He’s here, right here for you.

If we desire love enough, it is enough to know Who Love really is.