Back in 1984, singer Tina Turner belted out the question: “What’s love got to do with? It’s just a second hand emotion.” Well, if you are a believer or a romantic like Dante was with his Beatrice or Romeo and Juliet, you’ve realized that love has got everything to do about everything! Let’s see if I can explain myself.

Love, what is it exactly? According to Google, the King James Version of the Bible, mentions love 310 times in the Old Testament and 174 times in the New Testament. In the New American Standard Version love is mentioned 348 times: 133 times in the Old Testament, and 215 times in the New Testament. By those counts alone, it seems like a pretty important something.

Christians are to be bound together through their mutual love, which is a reflection (to others) of their love for Christ. In the Gospel of John, the word “love” appears 57 times!

So, where am I going with this? I first decided to check in with Charles Schultz and Charlie Brown. How did they go about explaining the state of being that leaves people confused, happy, nostalgic, complete or lonely? Here’s what both Charles and Charlie Brown had to say in the book Love is Walking Hand in Hand:

Wrote Schultz: “Well, I can recommend a book, or a painting or a song or a poem, but I can’t explain love. I can talk about baseball, which starts in a couple of weeks, but love?!” Charlie Brown actually gives you about thirty-one ideas about what love is, and I would list them for you, but as I like to promote reading as a past time, I suggest you purchase Love is Walking Hand in Hand and have fun checking out Charlie’s definitions for yourself.”

As for what God says, look at 1 John 4:16, “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” John 3:16 states: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish by have eternal life.” In the New Testament God’s love for humanity, the world, is expressed in the Greek as “agape”, the highest form of love; the love of God for man and of man for God.

Love seems to be the missing ingredient today. I’ve observed more animosity and hate than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. We can blame it on politics, religious differences, prejudices of all types and kinds. What seems to be missing is love for one another, and by that I don’t mean tolerance, but perfect love, which goes to any length to save and any heights to reach. Perfect love is complete, all consuming, with no trace of doubt in the power of the Holy One. The choice to love is not just a feeling, it is an action, and that is why it’s so difficult. It’s not based on words or hypocritical needs but based on truthful action. It is why Jesus died on the cross for us. It is why, through his love, that our hearts can truly experience the power of true love.

As the Lenten season is upon us, can we choose to be strong and courageous, backed by God’s love that calms our anxious spirits, and remind that all things pale without the love shown at the Cross. Could we do that? Be humiliated, lied about, beaten, have a crown of thorns pushed through your head, carry a cross through crowds that are shouting at you, be nailed through your hands and feet and left to hang on a cross until you can no longer get any air into your lungs?

You see, that’s what love has to do with it…. that God gave his only Son, his only Son, so that you may have eternal life. That, my friends, is why real love has to do with everything!