Love is often defined by and through experiences or observation. We experience love on a continuous basis and we observe the evidence of love all around us. However, there is a deeper love that can only come by revelation. When that love is made known to us, it brings all other expressions of love into their proper perspective. Those who love deeply are eventually wounded deeply because what appears on the surface can lose its luster over time. Impressions lead to disappointments if those impressions are not deeply rooted in truth. In our search for love, we must not seek it looking in the wrong places. Otherwise, we may find ourselves traveling down the dead-end path of infatuation. Its attraction is for the moment, while its glory continues to fade as character is revealed, and the deficit is so pronounced that we wonder how we could have embarked on such a journey.

God is love! He is not restricted by our ideas of love, but we grow in our understanding of love as we grow in our understanding of God. There are things that happen in life that are difficult to understand or explain. But God makes everything beautiful in its own time! It is not the journey alone we must seek, but the journey that leads to the destination that really matters. Love endures all things. After the dust has settled on the subjects under our inquiry and the residue of the experiences have long dissolved, love remains and speaks louder than we first heard it speak. God says to us that He loved us through the experiences and loves us on the other side of every circumstance. The challenges of life do not come to disprove God, but rather to show us that He is the only One in whom we can place all of our trust. Those who completely trust in Him will never be put to shame. Disappointments will only last for a moment while we wait on Christ by way of the Holy Spirit to show us the heart of the Father. When we see Him on the other side of the trial, our hearts are enlarged and our confidence will be increased to face future challenges.

Now love is also expressed through the companionship of a faithful friend. Through those who love without partiality and are faithful to the end, we see the Father’s love demonstrated. We cannot give all the credit to the friend. Rather, we must acknowledge Christ as allowing us to see and experience in this life what He wishes us to see, and experience forever that which dwells in Him. Marriage is for that reason. God places a man and a woman together as a means of expressing the love that Christ has for the Church. Nothing is held in reserve as each give their all to the other. The trust that is established over time solidifies the clinging or dependency on each other that only death should separate. It is an awesome thing to need each other. To say my wife is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh is to say that she is a part of who I am. This too can only come by revelation, as it must be with all God-ordained relationships.

Whether it be the corporate gathering of the Church Assembly, the connection that exists between friends, or the bonds of those who are joined together in Holy Matrimony, love holds relationships together. And that which God has joined together, let no man separate.