Categories: devotional

Love Is an Action

If you really love someone, then you show it by how you act toward that person.

Love is more than attraction and more than arousal. It’s also more than sentimentality, like so many of today’s songs suggest. By this standard, is love dead when the emotion is gone? No — not at all — because love is an action and a behavior.

Over and over again in the Bible, God commands us to love each other, and you can’t command an emotion. If I told you right now, “Be sad!” you couldn’t be sad on cue. Just like an actor, you can fake it, but you’re not wired for your emotions to change on command.

If love were just an emotion, then God couldn’t command it. But love is something you do. It can produce emotion, but love is an action. 

The Bible says, “Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions” (1 John 3:18 NLT, second edition). We can talk a good act: “I love people.” But do we really love them? Our love is revealed in how we act toward them.

Rick Warren

Leave a Comment
Share
Published by
Rick Warren

Recent Posts

Cómo Resistir Fuerzas Destructivas

“Entonces ya no seremos inmaduros como los niños. No seremos arrastrados de un lado a…

22 hours ago

Sow Godliness in the Next Generation

Years ago PBS did a series of family histories of famous Americans. They wanted to…

22 hours ago

Por qué el Cambio No Ocurre Instantáneamente

“¡Tú guardarás en perfecta paz a todos los que confían en ti, a todos los…

2 days ago

God’s Promises to Those Who Give

To reap a great harvest, you must plant generously in faith. My wife Kay and…

2 days ago

Acepta lo que Dios Está Haciendo

“Pero olvida todo eso; no es nada comparado con lo que voy a hacer. Pues…

3 days ago

Why Not Your Best?

Admiral Hyman Rickover was the father of the U.S. nuclear Navy. He once interviewed a…

3 days ago