Love Is Indestructible

Love Is Indestructible

The Young Bride

Read: Song of Songs 8:6-7

The elderly woman stroked her husband’s arm as his vacant eyes stared out the sunny window. How she ached to hear him say her name, to feel his hand gripping hers, to get any response at all. Although her friends told her that she was wasting her time, somehow she managed to get to the nursing home several times a week. She had watched helplessly as Alzheimer’s disease stole his memory, his personality, his speech, and his dignity. But she refused to allow this enemy to steal her love from him.

This woman chose to live out the words spoken by the bride in today’s Bible passage. Her declarations about the permanent nature of love contain some of the most beautiful verses about love in the Bible. Enraptured with devotion for her husband, the young woman asserted that love is “as strong as death.” Although it “flashes like fire,” even rivers cannot quench or drown it. The bride’s love for her husband had matured beyond physical or emotional feelings and desires. She had chosen to make a lasting commitment that would endure through time and triumph over obstacles and problems.

In today’s society, many people know only a cheapened substitute for love instead of the real thing. How sad to settle for a relationship based on physical attraction, emotional feelings, or a self-centered desire to get our own needs met. The Bible teaches that genuine love for others is one of the proofs that we belong to God. That means making a lasting commitment to have their best interests at heart. When we treat others in this way, we reflect the indestructible love that God has for us—an unconditional love that lasts through eternity. You can’t get a more lasting commitment than that.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13