The Bible states, “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) It’s not just that God is loving which He certainly is, but love is the very nature and essence of God.

We should pause for a moment and contemplate that incredible statement. Our Creator is love and we are created in His image, therefore we are designed to love. Of all the wonderful capabilities that we humans have–to think, to run, jump, and play, to feel…love is the premier attribute of our nature. It is what we are designed to do. The apostle Paul recognized this divine aspect of our human nature and summed it up succinctly, “Do everything in love” (1 Cor 16:14).

So what do we make of this “love”–a theme so prevalent in poetry, prose, and lyric? Do we love ice cream the same way we love our pets, our parents, or the same way we love our spouse or significant other? Is love some catchall squishy verb that has so many meanings, feelings, and definitions associated with it that it almost becomes indiscernible? Does its versatility come at the cost of clarity? What kind of love is Paul talking about?

The Greeks had at least four words for love ranging from eros which is physical, romantic love to storge (love of family/empathy) and philia (brotherly/soulmate love) to agape which is an unconditional (default action) love. It is this latter, agape, often called Godly love that Paul is discussing.

He further gives a detailed description of its characteristics in 1 Cor 13:4-7: “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, love does not boast, love is not proud. Love does not dishonor others, love is not self-seeking, love is not easily angered, love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Jesus Christ is love and you could easily put His name in the place of “love” in the above paragraph and it makes perfect sense. Christ is patient, Christ is kind…. Our goal and mission in our journey through life is to be able to put our name in place of love and have the statement remain truthful. A “Joe is patient, Joe is kind” or “Jane does not envy, Jane does not boast” kind of thing. When you read through them carefully, this love stuff is a little more challenging than one might think. It’s way more than a feeling. It’s an attitude, an action, a motivation and behavior for all that we do—do everything in love.

In the very first blog on this site, I wrote about the cross of love. We are to obey Christ by first denying ourselves (put God first), pick up our cross (which is a cross of love–to love God and love others as we love ourselves), and follow Him.

Referring to our ongoing journey analogy—we’ve discussed packing for our journey (Preparation), why we are traveling (Purpose) and where we are going (Priority). Now, we are addressing how we travel and thus our “P” is PROCESS. Our process of following Christ (Truth) is to do everything in love.

We start the “process” by loving God, but it’s more than that. We pack for our trip recognizing that every circumstance we face are things we can influence & things we cannot. We leave those we cannot to God and we focus on what we can influence and intentionally strive to be wise in every decision we make. We follow Truth and we wear the armor of truth. This is our Preparation. Strategically, we are guided by our Purpose to glorify God and thus we have as our Priority to seek His Kingdom first in all our endeavors–to possess a Kingdom of God perspective. If we were all alone on the planet, this would be enough. We’d be done. Make wise choices, love God by glorifying Him, and see our world through His lens/viewpoint.

But we’re not alone.

Now, Adam started out alone with God and with the animals. But God noted that it was not good for man to be alone and He created Eve. When Adam saw Eve the Hebrew expression for his reaction loosely translates, “Hot diggidy dog!” She was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. This is the first “marriage” where the great mystery occurs where two beings become “one flesh”. Marriage was instituted by God for humans to develop the full intimacy of love. Only in marriage are all four types of love present and blessed by God.

Marriage is a shadow of the loving intimacy God plans for us humans in the world to come. It is often referred to as the marriage banquet. When we think of heaven, most ponder what it will look like–God’s throne, the elders, the streets of gold, etc. I think the most amazing aspect will be the experience of living in an environment of love–surrounded by love! Imagine when you’ve been in love and how you felt and multiply that by thousands and that’s how heaven will be! You’ll be in the presence of Almighty God and His incredible love will be overwhelming! We’ll be immersed in a constant sea of love! Thinking deeply about it, it’s hard to fathom.

Our Lord’s prayer is that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thus, we should strive to create an environment of love on earth and that is the important takeaway here—our “process”, our love is the central driving force for all our actions.

Travel SAFE.

Being a Navy guy, the Navy “loves” acronyms. (I don’t think it’s agape love though). So we’ll use one that’s easy to remember–travel SAFE in your life journey where SAFE stands for Serve, Accept, Forgive, and Encourage one another. These are all acts of love.

We are to use our talents and spiritual gifts to serve one another ( 1 Pet 4:10). We accept others just as Christ accepted us (Rom 15:7) which we should note that we weren’t all that acceptable. We know we’ll make mistakes so we forgive others just as Christ has forgiven you (Eph 4:32) and finally we are a team player and encourage one another in our journey together (1 Thess 5:11). That’s the SAFE way to travel and that pleases God.

Thus, we’ve described our Process in how we travel, but let’s look at the amazing process of how God makes this work. This is too cool for school!

We spoke about the Divine Love Triangle of loving God, loving others, and loving self. When we love others…when we serve, accept, forgive, and encourage others…we bless ourselves. We’ve all heard it’s better to give than receive. Well, scientists and psychologists now confirm that. When treating depression, stress, or anxiety, therapists (even secular ones) suggest to patients to go volunteer to help others. Scientifically, when we help others, certain “feel good” brain chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin are released. By helping others, you feel better…you become blessed.

Why does this happen? Because that is how God designed us!

We are created in God’s image and we are designed to love! When we function as we are designed, we perform better, we do better, we feel better, we are better. How much “better” can that get? God is the ultimate Engineer and His design is so incredible! When we love others, the person receiving the love is obviously blessed, we are blessed by showing love, and God is glorified by our actions. It’s the ultimate win-win-win scenario! As we are blessed, we can love more thus more people are blessed and God is glorified even more. It becomes an upward spiral of love.

Imagine if the whole world would practice it! Think of the possibilities! Yes, there is still disease, and yes, there are still natural disasters and human accidents, but 99% of human suffering is caused by humans acting selfishly and stupidly with other humans. Most of that human-induced pain would disappear if we all had agape love for one another. It should make us all very somber and sad to think of our world as it is today and ponder its potential of what it could be. It should break our heart as it does the heart of our heavenly Father.

But this is why we are here and this is why we need to be a bright light in the world. We are to let our light shine in such a way (by showing love to others) that people will see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven (which glorifying God is our Purpose). We need to share the truth about God’s amazing grace and love to the world. That is our next “P”–PROCLAMATION.

For now, let’s all do our best to show our love to others. Until our next blog, travel SAFE!