East Flatbush Writer

Forty years ago,  Tina Turner a music icon performed arguably her greatest hit,  “Whats Love Got to Do With It” at the 27th Grammys Awards show.   It was her comeback performance after ending a very abusive 16 year marriage.  The lyrics tell a story of a woman who had decided that whatever exciting, pulse-racing feelings she might have for another man in her life, had nothing to do with real love.  It’s reasonable to assume that at some point in Tina’s life and marriage she believed in true love, but somewhere along the way it became distorted, stained, even irrevocably broken. It’s even sadder to admit that she had been subject to so much abuse that she might not have been able to recognize what love is. 

In our own lives we, too, have been subject to the distortion of what true love is meant to be. The childhood trauma we endured,  difficult social relationships,  church hurt by leaders we trusted, or a marriage that lost its way before being able to put it back on track. We decide how we are going to “love” looking through lenses that have been cracked by our own painful life experiences.  We “love” incompletely because we are incomplete, lacking the deep soulful satisfaction that comes from complete acceptance by another human being. 

When Paul, the author of I Corinthians wrote chapter 13: 4-7, he wasn’t referring to self-love.   He may not have even been thinking about the love between husband and wife, but rather how we are to love each other as believers, family members, and friends.  These four verses (4-7) are commands, and they challenge every inclination of whom and how we want to love.  We have become the center of our lives, and loving others more than we love ourselves flies directly in the face of this self-obsessed generation. How can we truly love others when we need to love ourselves? I must honestly say that without the help of the Holy Spirit and complete submission to God’s will, I have personally found it almost impossible to love in this self-less manner.  

To be patient and kind. To love without jealousy,  boastfulness, pride or rudeness. Loving without demanding our own way. Not irritable, and keeping no record of being wronged. The type of love that does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love that never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

So what’s love got to do with it? Everything!

Loving others in this manner is the greatest reflection of who God is, and puts on display His most important traits. Those around us and our intimate relationships are strengthened when in these practical ways we show the height and depth of true love.  It makes us “god-like” as the obedience to love others in this way demonstrates how God loves us.  It’s important to Him that we recognize that there is no other enduring quality than to love others in this way.  Paul echos the Lord’s sentiment in 1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT when he says, 

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.