Thoughts 2/16/2015: Love

Hi!
Sorry I haven't posted in so long. I've been pretty busy the last month or so.
Anyway, in light of Valentine's Day being a few days ago, I have decided to discuss a bit about love.
I don't have the time or space to write out all of 1 Corinthians 13, so look it up. If you don't have a Bible on you, here's a link (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=ESV). Try and keep up.
The first three verses talk about life without love. It says that no matter what you do, without love, it is all worthless. We are told in 1 John that God is Love, and so it is very interesting to think of it that way when reading this passage. Cool, huh? Without God, life is, as Shakespeare said, "full of sound and fury and signifying nothing." With God, life is exploding, it's bursting with meaning.
The next six describe love. In short, it says that love is everlasting and unconditional, but I want you to look closer at each of the terms used to describe love and ponder it. If God is Love, then how does this apply as well? It's so huge and unfathomable to believe that God invented love for the human race. For us.
Then there's the last verse
"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
 It was love that held Jesus on the cross. For love he was tortured in hell. It was Love that brought him back. It was because of the love of Love Himself that he came to join us and live a lowly life beside us. Think about it.
Personally, I have felt the pressure for romantic, worldly love. What I was talking about above is God's definition of love, which is a far cry from the world's definition. The world says that if you're without a date on Valentine's Day, you are-as my good friend Elsie Mason once said- a "sad single pringle". This is not true. In fact, Elsie and several other friends of mine had a girls' night in, where we were all HAPPY "single pringles" together. We have love. We have the best kind of love there is. The kind that comes directly from the Inventor of love, as well as friendship. If we really want to talk romantic relationships, here's what I believe- Hold on to your childhood! Dating to play mature is actually incredibly immature. You're robbing your future spouse of your mental purity and compromising your spiritual integrity. The affection you show a boyfriend or girlfriend that only lasts a few weeks shouldn't be more abundant or passionate than the affection you show your Divine Creator. When you are spiritually prepared for the commitment of romance, you should work to guard each other's hearts, just in case they aren't "the one". Oh, and please, keep the PDA(Public Displays of Affection) to a minimum. They make people uncomfortable, and if you aren't married, it is not respectful of your boyfriend/girlfriend and their future spouse, as well as your own.
There. Whoo, that was exhausting.