WHAT IS LOVE?
1 Cor. 13:4-8
love has so many definitions.
What is love?
Love is a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.
Love is attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers
Love is affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests: warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion
Love is the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration
Love is unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: brotherly concern for other
Love is that feeling, that strong emotional attachment of someone towards the object of his love: with the wish or the desire to do the following:
– To posses such an object and make it his own&
– To be close to that object of his love.
HOW CAN LOVE BE DEMONSTRATED?
1. By giving. John. 3:16. Giving is the first sign to show that you are in love while refusal to give is the first sign that there is a problem in a relationship. When last have you given to your spouse?
If someone told you that he is madly in love with you and has not been giving don’t mind him.
If someone has been giving you gifts and you are not married begin to expect what will follow. Will you marry me?
2. Bearing the pains and the burden of your partner as if they are yours. Pro. 15:17; Jn. 15:13; Rom. 5:8
3. Identifying with the person’s weakness. Pro. 10:12
4. By being physically present with the person you love most of the times. One of the major reason for marriage is to have companion, it makes sense therefore to say that a person who is still in love will not want to keep away from his partner. Eccl. 4:11. Love cannot exist in a distance.
5. By being open to the person you love. Judges.14:15-16. There are so many things your partner should know about you without thinking about it:
Where you said you are going to
When you are going to return
Your financial situations
Your worries in your place of work
Your ambition for the future
6. By showing interest in what interest the person you love. There are so many things you may not like or be part of your interests that are your spouse’s you have to be interested. Eph. 5:25-31
7. By proving with your actions more than what you say that you love her. Love can only be better proved by our actions and reactions. Jn. 21:15-17
8. When you are dealing with a person difficult to convince do something that is difficult for him to do for others to prove your love to him.
JEALOUSY?
What is jealousy?
It is a feeling of resentment/ hatred against someone who is like a rival, who has taken advantages over you and has success over you
It is a feeling of resentment against someone you feel has been unfaithful to you.
In every marital relation there is an element of jealousy which everyone of us should try to overcome with a high level of trust in our partner. When jealousy turns bitter it comes with the feeling of resentment towards the person we are supposed to love.
In marriage when exactly does the feelings come to the fore?
1. It comes when your lover has becomes your rival when these happen!
2. When you are no longer part of the marriage commonwealth. when husband and wives began to have different properties and assets, when houses are built in individual names and business are run as personal business without any reference to to the family.
WHAT ARE THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN AMONG BUSINESS RIVALS?
1. They seek legitimate /illegitimate ways and means to beat their opponents. Here it is always the husband who get hurt first, because he erroneously believed that as the family head he should be better than the wife.
2. They spy on each other.
3. They seek for the opponents weakness as a platform to defeat them. eg as in boxing
4. They rejoice at the failure of their opponents.
5. They suspect that the calamity they going through is caused by their partner and they might seek for spiritual power to change what they perceived as wrong
Jealousy is also a feeling of unfaithfulness towards ones partner.
At what time does this start in a relationship?
1. For those who get married based on infatuation it is from the onset of the relationship.
2. For those who have allowed bitter rivalry to enter into the relationship it is the day the other partner have done something suspicious.
3. If a partner has been caught once in unfaithfulness it may be that day and the partner may ever become suspicious.
4. The period a partner refuse sexual advaances
5. When a partner has been abandoned for the children or any other thing.
Pastor Abiodun John Adeniyi