I love you. Someone once said. No you don’t. I said.

I love you. Someone said again. Don’t say that unless you know what that means.

I love you? Someone asked. And I wondered about the law of love.

Is love a desire to be next to you? Is love a familiarity that grows on me over the years? Is love a connection due to proximity of blood relation? Is love an enchantment with your passing smile? Is love a primal need that you must fulfill to make me whole? What is the law of love that makes it true?

Some will say that love is in the eye of the beholder, like beauty. What makes up deep abiding love for one, will vary to the next. Some will say there is no solid definition of what true love is, it is subjective to the ones who call out her name. But an observation of feelings, of situations, of nature, of beauty, will teach us about the truth of love. To watch a kiss or feel a desire is not enough to set forth the eternal abiding truth of love. No someone must act true love to make it so. Someone must speak the law of love into our ears and into our heart.

The great eternal true laws and promises of our existence, go deeper longer and stronger than what we can discover from our own experience. The universal enduring principles known to generation upon generation is not just a product of day-to-day observation. The law of love was not created in our own personal understanding, but rather our personal understandings recall the shadows of a law spoken before we existed. True love proceeded our love.

So we wonder where is love when someone treats us with careful affection. Is this love? We look for love when we are remembered by a friend. Is this love? We expect love from a parent or a child who by definition should be connected to us in a familiar way. Is this love? But then we hear a word, a law of love that bespeaks the darkness, at this speaking love was done.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Here, in the speaking of the Gospel, we discover true love. Taught from the author of life itself, the designer of love and relationship, we learn the law of love. God gave his only Son, his beloved Son, so that you will live. That is love.

So, our love takes on the character of the one who sacrificed himself for us. Humiliated on the cross, for you. Exchanging glory for disgrace, for you. Forgiveness for you. This is the true law of love that only Christ can teach.

I love you. Someone once said.

I forgive you. Yes, that is love.