Place me like a seal over your heart,

   like a seal on your arm.

For love is as strong as death,

   its jealousy as enduring as the grave.

Love flashes like fire,

   the brightest kind of flame.

“I love Alaska,” “I love my dogs,” “I love bacon,” “I love …”  

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I have flippantly thrown around “love” quite a bit in my life. Who hasn’t? I mean love is just a feeling that comes and goes, right? We don’t have to take it too seriously or anything. Right? …Right?!

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Today’s verse paints a vastly different picture of love. And to be fair, there are different types of love not limited by our one word for it in the English language.  But if we are being real here, I never realized what love truly was until Jesus taught me. And WOW did that blow my mind.  

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You see, the Creator of all things, the One from whom love flows, designed love purposefully, and his design for love is one that is perfect. Take a moment to consider what love is and isn’t. 1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John 4:7-8 include important truths about what love is and where love comes from.

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Reading over today’s verse, we see an image of love that is powerful, lasting, and immensely serious. This isn’t a “here today, gone tomorrow” fleeting emotion. It’s a persevering, protecting, piercing, immensely strong, real, and tangible thing. What’s even more wild is that love isn’t this thing that we just decide to do of our own accord. In fact, we are actually only capable of love because God first loves us.  

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As we grasp a sense of what love truly is, what are we supposed to do with it? Does this mean that I’m suddenly unable to love as freely now?  Is there a higher standard of love?

Well friends, although love is more serious, more powerful, and more final than we often acknowledge, that should actually encourage us to love more, not less. We should look at this verse not as a limitation but instead as empowerment for us to love others and Jesus how he has designed us to.  

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As we take love seriously, embrace its power, and lean into what it was created to be, we can begin to love more like Jesus. This love is unapologetic, unconditional, and unwavering. It’s unrelenting, selfless, and passionate.  

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So, what if you and I sought to do everything in love? And what if our relationships were driven by love? I think we would begin to look a lot more like Christ, and I think we would see it becoming a lot more like it is in Heaven, right here in Alaska.

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Hopefully that all sounds great to you, but what now? Where does the rubber meet the road, and how can we see this through? Start with asking God to teach you what love really is and dig into his Word. For each relationship, situation, and circumstance, Jesus has already demonstrated how to love. And just like everything else, when we love our friends, family, spouses, and Jesus the way he designed us to, I think you’ll love how life looks.

Jesus, thank you for loving me first. I want to know what love really is. Would you break down every lie that I believe about love and replace it with your truth? Please help me to operate in love in every relationship I have. Help me to love others how you do. Amen.