WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF LOVE?

Today's promise: God pursues us with his love

What is your definition of love?

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

John 14:2 NLT

About this week's promise

A healthy definition of love is crucial to understanding the central message of the Bible. According to the Bible, love is not confined to sexuality, nor is it primarily a feeling at all. The Bible teaches that love is a commitment. As a commitment, love is not dependent of good feelings, but rather on a consistent and courageous decision to extend oneself for the well-being of another. That commitment then produces good feelings, not the other way around. Jesus became the perfect demonstration of God's unconditional love for us by laying down his life for our benefit.

Adapted from TouchPoint Bible with devotional commentary by Ron Beers and Gilbert Beers, Tyndale House Publishers (1996), p 1227

Digging Deeper

For more on this week's promise, see Revelations of a Single Woman by Connally Gilliam, Tyndale House Publishers (2004).

Turning our culture's Sex in the City worldview completely upside down, Revelations of a Single Woman celebrates God's enticing, life-giving promises, even when life takes you down a path you didn't plan for. Through this collection of thoughtful, honest, and humorous memoirs, the author delves into what it really means to be "the remainder" in a world that caters to couples, and what it means to be the one who lives out moral values that her peers think died in the sixties.

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

ELBERT HUBBARD

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House