Expressions of Faith. What's love got to do with it?


The title of this blog post is the title of a song sung by Tina Turner released in 1984. It was taken from her fifth solo album, Private Dancer and became Turner's most successful single and the title of the movie made of her life.

 This blog post has NOTHING to do with that song, Tina Turner, or the album.

 Then why use the title?

It got you here, didn't it?

 What this post IS about is love. Love from a Biblical perspective.

 I attended four Catholic masses in my life. That not an admission of guilt. Catholicism is not the branch of Christianity to which I belong.

 Two of those four masses were wedding masses. One was a funeral mass. The fourth was on February 1, 2019. It was a mass celebrating the 75th anniversary of St. Mary-Basha School in Chandler, Arizona.

 My granddaughters attend that school. The mass was part of the nationwide celebration of Catholic School Week. The speaker was the Bishop of the Phoenix Diocese. 

 Not that it wasn't a good sermon, but I don't remember most of what he said. I did write this down.
Love is taking little things 
and doing them over and over.

I googled and found a site with 13 verses about love.  

Here are my thoughts... 
Don't leave, I'm not going to discuss them all!
Proverbs 3:3-4
“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man."
John 15:12
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."
Romans 13:8
“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."
1 Corinthians 13:2
“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."
1 Corinthians 13:4-5
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."
1 Corinthians 13:13
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 16:14
“Do everything in love."
Ephesians 4:2
“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."
1 Peter 4:8
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
1 John 4:16
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them."

My mother now lives in a care facility. She's 97-years-0ld. She suffers from dementia.
When I go to visit her, there's a good chance she thinks I'm her brother, that she's in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and that it's sometime in the early 1940s.
Going to visit my mom is a little thing. I do it over and over. So does my sister, my wife, my brother-in-law... the list goes on.
Why do we go when I know if we go from the living room to her bedroom, by the time we return she will not remember that we're there?
Love is taking little things 
and doing them over and over.
Here's my take on five of the above scriptures as I consider the phrase above.
John 15:12
 The best reason to love other people is that it's Christ's COMMAND. Command is Jesus' word, not mine. If you look at how Jesus loved people, you'll see that at a large part of Jesus' definition of Love is
taking little things
and doing them over and over. 

1 Corinthians 13:2
 There are millions (billions?) of people in the world who show little or no love to those around them. Look at the things Paul says they think are important. What's important to them isn't
taking little things
and doing them over and over. 
That's why, by their own choices and action, they're nothing in the Kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 13:4-5
Look at the list of what love is not. Doing those "not" things are examples of the opposite of what love is. Love is
taking little things
and doing them over and over.

1 Corinthians 13:13
Even a small amount of faith can move a mountain.
Without hope, life is meaningless.
How can Paul write "...the greatest of these is love"? 
Paul knew the importance of love in filling life with purpose and meaning. 
  • Not a single mountain moving event.
  • Not an intangible, future idea or event.
  • Love is the key to living a life worth living because Love is
taking little things
and doing them over and over.

1 Corinthians 16:14
This is the bottom line. 
What do you do every day? 
Think about it.
Isn't most of your day filled with little things? Remember
Love is taking little things 
and doing them over and over.

 What's love got to do with it?

 “Do everything in love," because Tina Turner got the answer wrong. Love is not "just a secondhand emotion."
"...God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." 1 John 4:16b-c

The next Expressions of Faith is Not Your Cookie-cutter Travelogue

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