“Without the pure motive of love,
I would gain nothing of value”
(I Cor. 13:3) TPT
How do you explain love? Let’s look at the Hebraic picture of love. The Apostle Paul reveals to us the pre-eminence of love. God’s Word states that of all our possible attributes, none is greater than love. In spending time with the LORD this morning and asking what to write, I Corinthians 13 was brought to my mind. We all would do well to look at the first eight verses of this Scripture and judge ourselves by them.
Recently, I was watching a YouTube video of the Prophet Bob Jones. He was sharing his testimony about when he was ushered into the presence of the LORD. In this divine encounter he saw two lines of people. The people on his left were 98% of the world’s population. They had rejected the LORD. Some were wrapped in dollar bills, some in whiskey bottles, some in lust and some in what appeared to be drugs. Whatever their earthly god was, they were wrapped in that. Bob Jones was told that whatever your god was on earth, that is what you will serve for eternity, separated from the presence of the true, living God. He saw this line of people slip off of a kind of conveyer belt and into eternal darkness, a place with no light. The line Bob Jones was in was populated by those who had served the LORD on earth. The one question asked to everyone in his line was, “Did you learn to love? One lady who apparently lived a “good life” said that she only loved Jesus and was bitter against His people on earth. The Lord told her that she would not receive any rewards in Heaven because she did not truly learn to love. The only rewards in Heaven come from how well we loved on Earth.
Though we may speak with the tongues of men and angels but don’t have love, we actually become what The Word calls “sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.” To be sounding brass means that we are a “confused noise.” To be a tinkling cymbal means we are “hollow,” a “hollow basin of brass.” If we become hollow brass we are doomed to be restless men and women.
Even if I have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries, have knowledge, can speak to mountains to be removed and have all faith, without love, I am nothing.
If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be burned and don’t have love, I have NO benefits from Heaven.
Love suffers long, is kind, doesn’t envy, doesn’t brag, is not puffed up, doesn’t behave unseemly, doesn’t seek her own, and is not easily provoked. Love thinks no evil, doesn’t rejoice in iniquity, but rather in truth. Love bears all things, believes all things (God’s Word), hopes all things, endures all things, and never fails.
So, what is love? According to Hebraic pictographs, the word for love is Ahab.
אָהַב = Ahab (Aleph, He, Beth)
אָב = Ab (Father)
הַ = To reveal
What is love? Love is “the Father revealed.”
May we learn to love.
Blessings,
P/Karen
All scriptural references are from the KJV
