Love Is A Verb

“But Ruth said: “ Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”

Ruth 1:16-17

I look forward to meeting Ruth one day. Everybody needs a friend like her in your life. Someone who has counted the cost of friendship before it is ever put to the test.

Many couples who come in for premarital counseling will say that they have never had a fight nor have they hurt or broken each other’s hearts. I will ask them how do they know they are really in love then? I mean if love isn’t tested how could you know its true or not? I appreciate Pastor Greg Laurie’s statement, “A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted.” The same thing can be said of love as well. Until love is tested it’s just a noun. Its only when our love does something, that it is put into action does it become a verb. True love is an action and not an emotion though love certainly affects our emotions but we need to remember that true love is an active choice. True love is more predetermined than most people realize. True love is a choice, a matter of our will. That’s what we see in Ruth.

Ruth is a woman of determination. She determined to go the distance (a 50 mile uphill trek through the dangerous desert wilderness of Israel), to stay with a woman (Naomi) who was admittedly bitter and depressed, to live with her wherever here would turn out to be, and to accept her culture and its people as her own knowing she herself would be viewed as an outcast by them. She even determined to worship a God she didn’t understand though she heard her mother in law talk wrongly about how this God is the one who took their husbands from them as punishment for their rebellion towards Him. Yet still, Ruth determined in her heart to worship and serve this God not for what she would receive from Him but rather because she came to understand that He was worthy of worship. Ruth, was an incredible woman and she seals her commitment with the same kind of words one might hear at a wedding when she in essence said to her mother in law, “until death do us part”.

That’s love, friend, that’s the commitment it takes for love to stand the test of time. Predetermined love that says, no matter what happens, I’ll be there, I won’t give up, I won’t quit. That’s the key to success, friends, “staying power” in a world with “leaving power”. It’s the same kind of love Jesus has for you and me. A love that says, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you”. A love that says, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age”. That’s love, that’s Jesus and no matter where we have been in the past we can start today walking in love today.

Love is always looking forward, as love believes all things, love endures all things, because love never fails. Look forward, not back and remember love will find a way. God did when He sent His Only Son for you and me and when He sent His Spirit to help us, to empower us so we too could walk in His love. You can do it, loved one; you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Trust Him too and remember…

“And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

Joshua 24:15

I LOVE YOU!

Michael Osthimer

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