Love Is A Verb

Sat, 11 Sep 2021

‘He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.’ 1 John 4:8

Love is not just a noun; it’s a verb. It’s not what you think or feel; it’s what you do. Elizabeth Geikie was a Salvation Army missionary in India. One day she heard a scream and, running out of her hut, she saw some men carrying another. They laid him at her feet. He was in agony. She examined him and realised his foot was horribly swollen because of a huge imbedded thorn. She had no forceps and couldn’t get a grip with her fingers, so she knelt down and clamped her teeth around the thorn’s protruding end and slowly removed it. Then she bathed and bandaged the wound.

The next day the men were back. ‘Why is it that you, a white woman, would want to save the life of a man by placing your lips, the most sacred part of the body, against his foot, the most despised part of the body?’ She said, ‘Because my God, Who loves and values all men, asked me to do it.’ After that, the men soon they put their faith in Jesus.

Busy person, it’s easy to see people as irritants and inconveniences standing in the way of your getting things done. What’s hard, is to rise above your self-centred feelings and love them. Maybe you think this is no big deal! Think again. The Bible says, ‘Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.’ (1 John 4:7–8 NKJV)