Counterfeit Diamonds

After yesterday, I keep thinking about love and what it really is. I thought of all the false ideas of love.

July 26

Love is not lust. Love is not desire. Love is not control. Love is not a feeling. Of course, when you love someone, you do get a feeling. But please don’t mistake the two. If love is a feeling, then how do you love your enemy? What happens when the feeling fades? Did love die? No!

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails

The enemy is really crafty and knows how to take something like love and twist it. He promises the real deal and delivers a counterfeit. It looks like love, but it’s not. It has a similar feeling to love, but it’s not. If we don’t know what real love is we can easily mistake it for the counterfeit. Picture a diamond. It is a beautiful, sparkling, precious gem. When cut and placed in a piece of jewelry it can be highly desired and very costly. A diamond is so hard we use it on the tips of blades to cut the most difficult of things. A diamond takes a long time, under a lot of pressure to be created.

A cubic zirconia looks like a diamond, but is man-made. It is a counterfeit. It is not costly or precious. It is not hard, like a diamond or strong like a diamond. Over time a cubic zirconia will get cloudy because of all the tiny scratches that are easily made on the surface. Cubic zirconias contain no true brilliance or fire. They have a much lower refractive index. The only way to tell the difference between the real and the counterfeit is to look under a microscope. You need to know what to look for. The counterfeit has no flaws, but the true diamond, because of the time and pressure needed to create it, has tiny little flaws. A true diamond will last forever. A genuine diamond will radiate more brilliance than any cubic zirconia could ever have. The counterfeit will only last for a time. The same is with love. True love will last a lifetime. Lust, desire, pleasure will only last a season.

Love is a beautiful precious gift from God, don’t accept anything less.