Love…The greatest virtue of all
In this month of February when many will be celebrating love with their loved ones, we should stop and consider the most important and probably most talked about virtue, yet
In this month of February when many will be celebrating love with their loved ones, we should stop and consider the most important and probably most talked about virtue, yet one that is greatly misunderstood – love. Love can be a difficult virtue to discuss mainly because everyone thinks they have heard all there is to be said about it. We have probably heard from many different references in the Bible about God’s unconditional love for all mankind, something we should rejoice in, yet never take for granted.
What is our mandate as created beings in regard to love? Maybe we should start by stating what love is not so as to do away with the confusion that at times surrounds this virtue. Love is NOT an emotion even though love’s dictionary definition is “an intense feeling of deep affection.” Joshua Harris, an American author says that it is not necessarily wrong to feel love, but when we make our feelings the most important measure of love, we place ourselves at the centre of importance, which should not be the case. Love defies emotions and circumstances and should not be measured or governed b y feelings. DC T alk, an American rap trio from the late 80s had a song aptly titled: ‘Love is a verb’, which says a lot about love in very few words. Even though love can be felt, it is largely shown through actions.
About this, Harris says that our feelings by themselves don’t do others one bit of good. For instance, if a man feels love for the poor but never gives money to help them or never shows kindness to them, his feelings are worth nothing. After understanding these simple truths, we should stop regarding love as only a passive, emotional, warm and fuzzy feeling that one feels toward someone they like or are infatuated with.
Love is considered the most important virtue of all. In fact, it is the foundation of all other virtues. And like other virtues, it can also be developed. We should start by defining love as God defines it, as He is the origin of love.
In order to understand and carry out love practically, we need……