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It's coming. Can you hear the incessant footsteps?
It comes bearing bundles of little candy message hearts, chocolate in giant red boxes, and cardstock cartoon cards declaring awkwardly inappropriate messages for first graders everywhere.
Valentine's Day. February. The month of love.
Our culture is obsessed with the idea of love. There's romance in children's movies, innuendos in cartoons, and public displays of affection in full view everywhere we go. What does this look like to our kids?
The Bible has a lot to say about love. We can teach these biblical truths about love to our children so they will truly understand what love is, where it comes from, and its proper use. There are a number of great passages on love, but let's look specifically at just one, 1 John 4:7-21. You may want to read through it now. My points aren't in order.
1) God is Love — and all true love comes from God.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ~ 1 John 4:16-17 (ESV)
Love is not some nebulous, fuzzy feeling. God is love. Anything else is just a counterfeit of the real thing. We cannot possibly love anyone else without living in the love of God–it makes us like Jesus in some small way.
2) Love is a decision and an action — love is not a feeling.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ~ 1 John 4:7-11
True love is that God sent his own Son to die for us, nailed to a wooden cross. And Jesus left Heaven and came, knowing He would die. The Bible defines love as that action–laying down one's life for a friend. (John 15:13) One of the most devastating things we can allow our children to believe in life is that love is easy, that it feels warm and fuzzy all the time, or that it doesn't require sacrifice. Defining love is important.
3) We're commanded to love — even when it's hard.
If anyone says, ‘I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. ~ 1 John 4:20-21
Sometimes, love is easy. Sometimes it's beautiful. Often that's not the case. We don't love because it's easy–we love because our Lord and Savior has commanded that we do.
4) We love because God first loved us.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. ~ 1 John 4:18-19
We are feeling people. Why should we desire to follow Christ's command that we love others? We've been saved by grace, in no way because of any merit on our own part. We love out of the gratitude that comes from knowing that He loved us while we were unlovable. He has given us a new heart, and now we are capable of loving others.
5) Our love shows God's presence in our lives.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ~ 1 John 4:12-15
It's an amazing thing that the God of the universe chooses to dwell in believers through the Holy Spirit. That is a mystery I cannot even begin to understand. When we repent from our sins and turn to Christ for forgiveness, the Holy Spirit manifests love in our lives and that love testifies to the Lord's grace and mercy. That, my friends, is spectacular.
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In 2015, I'm doing a series of printable memory verse booklets based on the Fruit of the Spirit. The booklet of verses on love will be available in a week or two. In the meantime, I hope you'll download the Fruit of the Spirit Memory Verse Booklet. You'll then be notified by email when the Love Memory Verse Booklet is available. Also, while you're here at Kids in the Word, don't forget to download the Romans Road to the Gospel Memory Booklet.
Image: Buster Brown Postcard, Richard Felton Outcault (1863-1928), Public Domain
All Scripture taken from the ESV® Study Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright ©2008 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
