Dear Editor,

LOVE Is unselfish. First Corinthians 12:4-8 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”

The word ‘Love’, I believe, is the greatest of all words in the English Language. Great writers, poets, singers, film makers, philosophers based their philosophies around this simple and precious word ‘love’. When this fascinating word is traced to its root from the Greek concept, it gives us the true meaning of the word ‘love’ from four Greek words: Eros, Philia, Storge and Agape. Eros has to do with sexual love between a man and woman; Philia means close friendship or brotherly love in Greek; Storge is family love, the bond among mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers; but the greatest love is what most experts called the ‘agape love’ or the God kind of love; selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, of all human beings.

This is the God kind of love Jesus spoke about in St. John’s Gospel Chapter 15:12 which are as follows: ‘‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

This is the type of love Gandhi, Mandela and King demonstrated to their enemies in the world. Gandhi wrote: “An eye for an eye gives the world a blind eye.” If we can follow this profound philosophy of love, we can live in a better world devoid of hate, greed and malice. What we need in Guyana is the God kind of love in our hearts that can keep the prison doors closed, that will give us lasting peace even in our parliament and our own homes.

The ultimate source of all encouragement is the fact that God is love, and He loves us and has a perfect plan for us. We live in a world full of hate, greed and human selfishness; we search for love in the person we love, but discover sooner or later we still long for a deeper and inner love that only God can give to us but no human. We search for love and joy in money, sexual pleasure, drugs, rum and false friends; but we sooner or later discover it’s all a mortal form of illusion. We even try psychology and all types of psychiatric treatment but found it’s of no use to us but gives us a mental break down.

We search for love in fulfilling our academic dreams by hard studies and discover that our education created more envy, strife and hatred in our lives from our evil- minded contemporaries. We earn money have the most beautiful husbands and wives and soon discover our wives and husbands are unfaithful to us and they have become our mortal enemies when our beauty, fame, popularity and money have come to an end. Then we suffer in fear, rejection, and humiliation and even ended up committing suicide or mental suicide until we die slowly. Our endless perpetual search for love in this material world like Alexander the great can never be found in material things that will fade away like our dreams in the pristine beauty of the serene night.

The illustrious King Solomon, the wisest and richest of all Kings if anyone was going to find purpose in “life under the sun” it would be Solomon.  He had all the wealth, power, sex, wisdom and achievements he could possibly pursue. And he went after them with relentless passion. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines yet he found life to be meaningless with all his worldly possessions and wrote the following:
Ecclesiastes 1King James Version (KJV)

1 The words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Though King Solomon possessed a great abundance of wealth, wisdom, knowledge and divine power to rule over his people, he referred to his possessions as ‘vanity’, meaning useless in Hebrew, the state or quality of being valueless, futile, or unreal, something that is worthless or useless. He penned great spiritual wisdom from the book of Ecclesiastes; he wrote it as a preacher and a poet who realised that all his material possessions will fade away but his soul shall never die and he longs for a place with his Creator when he is gone from this world. Just like Jesus said:

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36

Our souls according to the Greek in the Bible has to do with our minds, will and emotions so Jesus is telling us here not to lose our minds and hearts by gaining material things in this life that will take the place of God. The great Apostle Paul admonishes us when he wrote:
‘

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.’(I Timothy 6:10)
What words come to mind when you think of this phrase: The love of money is the root of all evil.  Greed?  Corruption? Vanity?  What about when I simply say the word money? Nothing is wrong to have wealth and money; what is definitely wrong is when we make our money become our God.

TRUE LOVE AND PEACE IS FOUND ONLY IN CHRIST
The Bible indicates that love is from God. In fact, the Bible says “God is love.” Love is one of the primary characteristics of God. Likewise, God has endowed us with the capacity for love, since we are created in His image. This capacity for love is one of the ways in which we are “created in the image of God.”2

The Greek language (the language of the New Testament) uses two different words to describe and define love. The most commonly used Greek word translated “love” in the New Testament is “agape.” This love is represented by God’s love for us. It is a non-partial, sacrificial love, probably best exemplified by God’s provision for our rebellion:
For God so loved (agape) the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
The gift of God’s son as a provision for sin was given to all humans, regardless of who we are. God’s love is unconditional. If we love God we will have love for our fellow humans upon this earth. God’s love will obliterate crimes and every human war upon this earth and our nation if we allow God to change and transform us through his Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus defined the greatest love from a human perspective, as recorded in the gospel of John: Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)
Jesus Himself fulfilled this greatest love by dying for us so that we could be forgiven of all our sins and have fellowship with God. We need God’s love in Guyana that will give us lasting peace.

Regards,
Rev.Dr.Gideon  Cecil