Lovers of what?

I've been examining my words lately, and I've noticed it's very common to say you "love" things. Whether it's food, chocolate, pets, cars, cake, shoes, clothes, lip gloss...we seem to "love" everything. The question I pose, however, is have we all forgotten what love is? How can we possibly love these things? Why would we place our love in anything except God's people? Why would we invest our emotion and energy on something that cannot be saved or taken with us? Why not love our kids a little more and leave the scrapbooking as a "like"? Why not love our neighbor enough to TAKE them a cake instead of just loving the cake? I know that most of the time, we say love and MEAN like, but words are very powerful. You put that much value in a THING, whether by habit or choice, and you are going to start seeing that thing in another light. The bible says our tongue is the MOST unruly member of our body, so to keep it under subjection, we should not even allow it to say things that seem harmless like this, because before you know it you are telling a friend how much you "love" football and your son starts to wonder if you love it more than him. You watch it more than you play with him, you enjoy it more than you enjoy him. You may NEVER say it, but actions speak louder than words, and all it takes is one seed of doubt for disaster to strike a family. So, let's keep our tongue in check and like the hobbies and foods we like, but reserve "love" for the people in our lives that matter most to us. For after all, true love can't be shown to an inanimate object. What is love? 1 Corinthians 13 puts it best...

Love...

suffereth long

is kind

envieth not

vaunteth not itself

is not puffed up

doth not behave itself unseemly

seeketh not her own

is not easily provoked

thinketh no evil

rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth

beareth all things

believeth all things

hopeth all things

endureth all things

and never faileth.

So, if you don't feel all of these things for scrapbooking, food, pets, drinks, shoes, clothes, books, or anything else, then don't say you "love" them...cause that is love. :)