During one of our recent adult classes, Rick mentioned that love is something we learn. I don’t disagree with his conclusion, but his comment caused me to think about some of the videos that have come through my social media feed. So much of the junk that gets pushed in our direction are things not worth seeing, and in some cases, they are things that we really do not need to be viewing at all. Instead of these junk videos, the ones that I am referring to are those that demonstrate love. I believe these videos show a type of love that we typically don’t consider nor even think much about
You may not agree with me, but here are my thoughts on what I believe to be examples of more than just a learned love. It certainly has the aspects of how love is learned, but my thought is that God’s love is so powerful, it even exhibits itself in the way God’s created creatures demonstrate His love.
I can’t prove that this shows a true love, but some animals mate for life. In this case there is the Atlantic puffin, the Eurasian beaver, the coyote, as well as several others. If mankind would only take on their examples, I believe our world would be a much better place.
1 John 4:8 (NKJV) – He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
I am frequently sent videos of all sorts of creatures being rescued. Some of them are not yet hatched, just recently born and abandoned, and then there are those that are barely alive. The common theme is that someone, or even another type of animal, shows them compassion, care, and love. Many of these animals become life long pets, come back again and again to visit their rescuer after being released, or they may even bring back their offspring or other members of their families for a visit.
Genesis 9:2 (NKJV) – And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.
I am not excluding the house pet nor farm animal varieties, but a big portion of the animals in these videos are what we would consider wild beasts of the field. I am talking lions, tigers, bears, birds of all shapes and sizes, reptiles, as well as other beasts not typically friendly to man as described in Genesis 9:2. You can basically name the animal, and it will demonstrate a grateful love for something other than its kind, especially when it owes its life to its rescuer. I believe it is a type of God’s love that we should all have for each other, especially for Jesus who rescued us.
John 3:16 (NKJV) – For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
My thought is that God’s love is demonstrated all around us. We just need to look for it and learn from His love. I believe that God’s love saturates and penetrates this entire world. God’s love is omnipresent. I am not saying that there isn’t hate in this world, for I suspect that each of us has experienced it at some point in our lives, but we all know that hate is not from God.
So as Rick mentioned, let us learn how to better love each other as we strive to be more loving of each other.
John 15:12 (NKJV) – This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.