All about LOVE!! #1

LOVE!!!
A four letter word that has so much packed into it, it is indeed
the biggest and fattest word of any word invented my humans in
any language.
Back in the 1960s I had a book called "Love, Hate, Fear and other
Emotions." They had even in the 60s discovered that our emotions
play a mighty important part of our health. I well remember in
the book the facts they gave on orphaned babies and love. They
discovered that the babies that were picked up and cuddled, held,
loved ... THRIVED; but babies not picked up and loved did not
move on in health, some even died.
LOVE - the subject is so large - I will only start it here and
will go into full detail with the subject on my website under
"Christian Living."
FROM THE BOOK "1001 QUOTES, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND HUMOROUS STORIES"
God loves us the way we are, but he loves us too much to leave us
that way.
(Atonement, Salvation)
When [Jesus] wrapped a towel around his waist, poured water into
a basin, and began to wash his disciples' feet (see John 13:4-5),
Simon Peter objected that this was beneath the dignity of the
Master. We the disciples are to be the servants, I want to insist
along with Peter. But Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you,
you have no part in me." This is a stunning and stupendous
thought. Unless I can believe in this much love for me, unless I
can and will accept him with faith as my servant as well as my
God, unless I truly know that it's my good he seeks, not his
glory ... then I cannot have his companionship. What an amazing
revelation!
Catherine Marshall
(Service, Devotion)
How do I want to be remembered? Not primarily as a Christian
scholar but rather as a loving person. This can be the goal of
every individual.
Elton Trueblood
(Legacy, Goals)
More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of
real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the
world, and more people have been driven from the church by the
hardness and ugliness of so-called Christianity than by all the
doubts in the world.
William Barclay
(Christianity, Church)
The height of our love for God will never exceed the depth of our
love for one another.
Patrick Morley
(Fellowship, Community)
Love should cast out terror, but not awe. True love must include
awe. This is one of the great truths about sex and marriage that
our age has tragically forgotten: awe at the great mystery that
is sex.... God is love. But love is not luv. Love is not nice.
Love is a fire, storm, earthquake, volcano, lightning, and
hurricane. Love endured the hell of the cross.
Peter Kreeft
(Sex, Awe)
A man is only as good as what he loves.
Saul Bellow 
(Character, Devotion)
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then
there is no more hurt, but only more love.
Mother Teresa
(Sacrifice, Suffering)
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and
soften and purify the heart.
Washington Irving
(Character, Sanctification)
If you're going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can't
pick and choose who's going to be the sparrow.
Madeleine L'Engle
(Servanthood, Compassion)
Love is ... a free gift.... And it is most itself, most free when
it is offered in spite of suffering, of injustice, and of death.
Archibald MacLeish
(Sacrifice, Servanthood)
People need love, especially when they don't deserve it.
Unknown
(Devotion, Compassion)
Christians state glibly that they love the whole world, while
they permit themselves animosities within their immediate
world.... But loving the world at large can only be done by
loving face-to-face the world that is not so distant.
Calvin Miller
(Compassion, World)
......
Lee Iacocca once asked legendary football coach Vince Lombardi
what it took to make a winning team. The book "Iacocca" records
Lombardi's answer:
There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the
fundamentals and have plenty of discipline but still don't win
the game. Then you come to the third ingredient: If you're going
to play together as a team, you've got to care for one another.
You've got to love each other. Each player has to be thinking
about the next guy and saying to himself: If I don't block that
man, Paul is going to get his legs broken. I have to do my job
well in order that he can do his.
The difference between mediocrity and greatness," Lombardi said
that night, "is the feeling these guys have for each other."
In the healthy church, each Christian learns to care for others.
As we take seriously Jesus' command to love one another, we
contribute to a winning team.
Christopher Stinnett
(Caregiving, Teamwork)
This story comes from a Sunday school ministry in the part of New
York City that has been rated the "most likely place to get
killed." Pastor Bill Wilson has been stabbed twice, shot at, and
had a member of his team killed:
One Puerto Rican lady, after getting saved in church, came to me
with an urgent request. She didn't speak a word of English, so
she told me through an interpreter, "I want to do something for
God, please."
"I don't know what you can do," I answered. "Please, let me do
something," she said in Spanish.
"Okay. I'll put you on a bus. Ride a different bus every week and
just love the kids."
So every week she rode a different bus-we have fifty of them-and
loved the children. She would find the worstlooking kid on the
bus, put him on her lap, and whisper over and over the only words
she had learned in English: "I love you. Jesus loves you."
After several months, she became attached to one little boy in
particular. "I don't want to change buses anymore. I want to stay
on this one bus," she said.
The boy didn't speak. He came to Sunday school every week with
his sister and sat on the woman's lap, but he never made a sound.
Each week she would tell him all the way to Sunday school and all
the way home, "I love you and Jesus loves you."
One day, to her amazement, the little boy turned around and
stammered, "I-I love you, too." Then he put his arms around her
and gave her a big hug.
That was 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon. At 6:30 that night, the
boy was found dead in a garbage bag under a fire escape. His
mother had beaten him to death and thrown his body in the trash.
"I love you and Jesus loves you." Those were some of the last
words he heard in his short life-from the lips of a Puerto Rican
woman who could barely speak English.
God's Love!
My Sunday school class of youngsters had some problems repeating
the Lord's Prayer. One child prayed, "Our Father, who art in
heaven, how'd you know my name."
Clara Null
(Children, Prayer)
Love for Pigs!
In the 1980s, people shelled out thousands of dollars to own a
potbellied pig, an exotic house pet imported from Vietnam. Their
breeders claimed these minipigs were quite smart and would grow
to only 40 pounds. Well, they were half right. The pigs were
smart. But they had a tendency to grow to about 150 pounds and
become quite aggressive.
What do people do with an unwanted potbellied pig? Fortunately,
Dale Riffle came to the rescue. Someone had given Riffle one of
these pigs, and he fell in love with it. The pig, Rufus, never
learned to use its litter box and developed this craving for
carpets and wallpaper and drywall. Yet Riffle sold his suburban
home and moved with Rufus to a five-acre farm in West Virginia.
He started taking in other unwanted pigs, and before long, the
guy was living in hog heaven.
There are currently 180 residents on his farm. According to an
article in U.S. News & World Report, they snooze on beds of pine
shavings. They wallow in mud puddles. They soak in plastic
swimming pools and listen to piped-in classical music. And they
never need fear that one day they'll become bacon or pork chops.
There's actually a waiting list of unwanted pigs trying to get a
hoof in the door at Riffle's farm.
Dale Riffle told the reporter, "We're all put on earth for some
reason, and I guess pigs are my lot in life." How could anybody
in his right mind fall in love with pigs?
......
LOVE does not often come easy for many. It is much easier to
hate, be jealous of, be antagonistic against, hold a grudge
against, dislike others, be cold towards others, be un-
sympathetic, and be in plain words an un-loving person. It takes
effort to love, especially when others do not show you love. It's
easier to just go along with the side of human nature that is not
the nature of love. 
We shall in this study learn about LOVE, about love in many ways,
and what the Word of the Lord has to say about LOVE. When you
feel love is far from you; when you feel love is not in you; when
you feel love is hard to find; then you need to sit and read this
study again and again as you find the need to build up love in
your heart and mind towards others and towards God.
To help you find love you could take a walk out in the peace of
nature, see the beauty all around you, meditate on the good
things you have, or sit and watch a nature movie, read a book on
the glories of flowers. Just fill your mind with thoughts of how
people have loved others, what they did or said towards others
that showed wonderful love.
LOVE is a deep subject, a small word, but HUGE in scope and
meaning. So here we go to find out all the truth about LOVE!
..........
To be continued