“I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.<\/em>” (Song Of Solomon 2:7, ESV)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Love is essential for Christ’s disciples. Love is a desire we awaken so that the abilities we practice and the opportunities we are presented with may be met with our actions. (cf. Hebrews 10:23-25) Love has a power that, depending on when awakened, may cause one to ascend upwards in bliss or downwards in despair.<\/p>\n In his book,\u00a0The Road Less Traveled<\/em>, M. Scott Peck said, “I define love thus: The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” (p. 82) He continued by saying, “Love is not simply giving; it is judicious giving and judicious withholding as well. It is judicious praising and judicious criticizing. It is judicious arguing, struggling, confronting, urging, pushing, and pulling in addition to comforting. It is leadership. The word ‘judicious’ means requiring judgment, and judgment requires more than instinct; it requires thoughtful and often painful decisionmaking.” (p. 111)<\/p>\n Reflecting on Paul’s tender words, an early disciple named Clement wrote this: “Love joineth us unto God; love covereth a multitude of sins; love endureth all things, is longsuffering in all things. There is nothing coarse, nothing arrogant in love. Love hath no divisions, love maketh no seditions, love doeth all things in concord. In love was all the elect of God made perfect; without love, nothing is well pleasing to God; in love, the Master took us unto Himself; for the love which He had toward us, Jesus Christ our Lord hath given His blood for us by the will of God, and His flesh for our flesh and His life for our lives.”<\/p>\n Love is the very flame of the Lord God (Song of Solomon 8:6).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Sam Stinson “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” (Song Of Solomon 2:7, ESV) Love is essential for Christ’s disciples. Love is a desire we awaken so that the abilities we practice and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-57979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-love"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":84074,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/romanticizing-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":57979,"position":0},"title":"Romanticizing Love","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Different things come to mind when we think of \"love.\" We often think of love as a feeling of infatuation, where we are walking with our heads in the clouds with a romantic feeling toward someone. But, while that may be pleasant, it is not the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60924,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/whats-in-your-bucket\/","url_meta":{"origin":57979,"position":1},"title":"What’s in Your Bucket?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wendi L. Capehart When I was a young mother of two children in diapers an older lady at church shared the bucket parable with me.\u00a0 The basic idea is that as you go through life, you are carrying a full bucket.\u00a0 And sometimes in your day-to-day life,\u00a0 you get\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/05\/buckets-248x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12254,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-to-enter-into-a-relationship-at-the-age-of-19\/","url_meta":{"origin":57979,"position":2},"title":"Is it wrong to enter into a relationship at the age of 19?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I want to know if it is wrong for a Christian girl to enter into a relationship at 19 years of age without having sex. Answer: Much depends on your definition of \"relationship\" and \"sex.\" These days these words are so loosely defined that just about anything goes. If\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7500,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-is-it-appropriate-to-start-kissing\/","url_meta":{"origin":57979,"position":3},"title":"When is it appropriate to start kissing?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: When is an appropriate age to start kissing from a biblical standpoint or is there one? Answer: Most people start at infancy. Okay, okay, I know that isn't what you meant, but it does point out that it isn't the kiss that is critical to the answer, but the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":52532,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-love-or-lust\/","url_meta":{"origin":57979,"position":4},"title":"Is It Love or Lust?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Robert H. Farish Gospel Guardian - October 19, 1967 The English word \"love\" is one of the most used and worst abused words in the language. For many people, love is identified with lust. People who do have not the remotest idea of what love is according to God\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12161,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-christian-love-demand-a-willingness-to-lay-down-your-life-for-a-friend\/","url_meta":{"origin":57979,"position":5},"title":"Does Christian love demand a willingness to lay down your life for a friend?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: While teaching the adult class I made the statement that a true characteristic of Christian love is that one would be willing to lay down his\/her life for his\/her friends.\u00a0 One lady stated that she could not do that.\u00a0 What are your thoughts?\u00a0 How would you answer this lady's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/01\/LoveFlames.jpg\")
Does not love sear us with its seal? See her who clutches a sixty-year-old picture to her chest; with the comfort God has given us, let us comfort her. (II Corinthians 1:4) See him who waits in the cold room; let us be his family, holding his hand. Love sacrifices, love languishes, love awakens early, love stays up into the early hours, love leads, love suffers without a sound, love is the line that deepens. The balm of the gospel is the essence of God’s love for us in that he sent Jesus our savior to die for us. Our healing came through his stripes (Isaiah 53:5). I adjure you, fellow laborers of the vineyard, let us engrave this love on the tablets of our hearts. (Proverbs 3:3) Let us struggle, let us exemplify, let us extend ourselves, making room for others (II Corinthians 7:2). Let us break up our cardiacal fields and sow the seeds from which love buds. Prophecies will die, knowledge will be forgotten, but love will not (I Corinthians 13:8). Let love be our motive whenever we speak, whenever we act.<\/p>\n