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"And Right There, It Says Love"
His name was Wayne D. Tibbs, Jr. And that’s how he signed the checks. But his on-air name was Wayne Allen. He was not only the owner of the station where I worked, but was a very popular on-air personality as well. He was an enterprising fellow; not only did he own the radio station, he also had a record store. It was almost directly across the street from Texas Tech University and so in-store traffic was never a problem. The 45 rpm record was in its hey-day at that time and the store sold thousands of them each week. Sometimes when he was short-handed at the store, I would finish my mike trick and help at the record store. It was always fun when they heard your name because they already had a mental picture of you from hearing you on the air. You never did look like they pictured you (I think I was always uglier than they thought I would be).
Selling records was fun. Many a person came into the store and said, “Do you have this new record that goes la-da, dee-da, da la-dee dee da and right there it says love.” Actually, nearly every record in the store said la-da, dee-da, da la-dee, da, and right there it said love. The reason is simple. Nearly every recording had something to do with love. Whoever said, “Love makes the world go round,” certainly had a true perspective of life.
Love is everywhere. People talk about love, sing about it, play at it, win and lose it, make it and break it. They write about it, see it at the movies and tv screens. They fight over it, analyze it, and laud it as the reason for lots of things like courage and constancy.
There are degrees and qualities of love. Parental love is likely the introduction to love for most of us. Puppy love follows along in course. Then comes puberty. It’s effect on love and love’s effect on it causes all kinds of funny feelings and sometimes bad stuff. That kind of love is sort of selfish and erotic. Somewhere along the line we learn about emotional love, the kind that makes us want to do some good for someone else to show them we care. It’s a kind of benevolent feeling for others. Even that kind of love, although the quality of it is superior to the lower forms like erotic love, has self as the focus. It wants a certain satisfaction for having used it.
But the great love is more than familial, more than erotica, more than the emotional variety. When it says, “I love you,” it means something more than self-satisfaction. It means I want what is best for you, no matter what it costs me. It means I am interested in you whether or not you are interested in me. It means I am concerned for you whether or not you even understand it. It means I love you when you are not loveable. It means I love you when you are blotched and dirty. It means I love you when you don’t choose to love me back. It even means I love you when you have treated me wrong. It means I would sacrifice for your good.
Love is not blind. The love recommended in the Bible is intelligent in addition to being caring. Paul, in Philippians 1:9, prayed, “...that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.” This, he said, “That ye may approve the things that are excellent.” Love is not blinded by passion, nor does it excuse wrong-doing. True love is a proper balance between truth and grace.
Love is not ignorant. Bible love is intellectually based. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment of all, He responded (Matt. 22:37), “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Please be advised that he said that loving God with all your being is a commandment, in fact the greatest commandment of all. In fact, He identifies this commanded love as being basic to all other truth. Certainly this love, when applied, produces good feelings. But true love operates with the mind, not the emotions.
Love is power. Motive is what drives a proposition or plan. Selfishness is a motive, albeit a very poor one. Love is the supreme motive. Love for man is what sent Christ into the world (Jno. 3:16). “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son...” His gift was prompted by His love. Without the love there would never have been the gift. He actually “commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:8). Never has such power been unleashed. Not in the creation, even. Salvation, justification, forgiveness of sins is the most powerful manifestation of love ever seen. It even defies adequate description.
Love is necessary. Paul says that no matter your abilities, no matter your insight into life, no matter your benevolence, if each is not produced by love, your efforts are futile, your work worthless. Love is then personified in I Corinthians 13. He says it suffers long. There is no love that doesn’t suffer long. He says it does not envy the gifts of others, and that it does not flaunt its own. Love–real love, that is– doesn’t become easily exasperated with the object of that affection, not does it behave in some oblique way. It doesn’t think evil, nor rejoice when some evil comes on someone– even someone who is its detractor. The real love rejoices in truth, not error and compromise. He says love believes easily, bears willingly, hopes sanguinely, and endures without murmuring. Can you imagine what kind of world this would be if everybody in it subscribed willingly and practiced diligently what is recommended in I Corinthians 13?
Love does not make the world go ‘round. Love is eternal. Actually, the only two things that man has that are eternal are his soul and his love. You cannot name a thing in life that will not eventually be done away. Peter says, “...the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works therein shall be burned up” (II Pet. 3:11). Not one thing will be left, because he says “all these things shall be dissolved.” And that includes not only the works of men, but all his concepts, all his learning, all his intellectual doings. Faith, for instance, will no longer be needed. Hope, which is our connection to the future, will no longer serve any logical function for man. But love–ah love! It will continue. And continue. And continue. As long as there is eternity, there will be love.
