Love Is Greatest

Claire Black: This is True Girl, a podcast for girls and their moms. Together, we’ll explore God’s truth for us—one drive at a time! Buckle up! You’re about to grow closer to each other and closer to Jesus!

Hey, I’ve got a question for you, true girl. Where does real love come from? It’s really easy to be emotional and think that it comes from Prince Charming. I mean, that’s what today’s movies and music seem to tell us. 

But you could go your whole life kissing a lot of frogs and never find true love. Nope! It doesn’t come from some sort of romantic relationship. Today, we’ll explore the only source of true love.

We’re in a season where we’re learning seven secrets to true biblical friendship. And today, you and I are going to explore friendship with God, which will prepare us for friendship with boys. 

True Girl is hosted by Dannah Gresh, author of Talking to Your Daughter about Best Friends & Means Girls. Let’s get moving for season 4, episode 8 titled, “Love Is Greatest.” Here’s Dannah!

Dannah Gresh: Hey true girl, you made it!

Staci Rudolph: You stuck it out for eight episodes with Dannah and me.

Dannah: You might have even memorized all of 1 Corinthians 13 with us. You know if you do that, you’ll be full of truth to respond to your friendships with God’s love. But even if you didn’t, that’s okay. But we hope you’ve figured out by now that 1 Corinthians 13 is your go-to chapter of the Bible when you have relationship problems to solve.

Now, today is the big finale to the True Girl friendship series. I think we’ve learned a lot of great stuff about true love. 

Staci: So far, we’ve talked about friendship with lots of different people:

• Our neighbors
• Mean girls
• Best friends

Dannah:

• Our parents 
• Our siblings 
• We’ve even talked about our friendship with God. 

Staci: You know, there's one kind of friendship we haven't talked about yet. Take a guess which one we missed? 

We’ll give you a second.

Dannah: Did you guess? I’ve just got to say, buckle up my girlfriend, because it's time to talk about friendship with, wait for it . . . boys!

Staci: I heard those mixed emotions all the way over here. I get it. Relationships with guys can be confusing.

Dannah: Confusing is the right word, Staci.

I want to read a little something to you. It’s a comment posted online by a girl about relationships with guys. It reads: 

Dating is so stressful. Sometimes I think it's better if I was just single all the time. But as soon as I see an uber cute boy walking by, I forget all those no-boyfriend thoughts, and I dive right in. Me and my friends have made an oath. We will find the perfect boyfriend this summer. We just have too! 

Now, I want to tell you that it was written by a twelve-year-old girl.

Staci: What? Okay, so let me get this straight. So, she thinks it’s better to be single. But she and her friends have made an oath to find the perfect boyfriend . . . because they “have to.” Those are really confusing thoughts from a twelve-year-old.

Dannah: Yeah, they are. I gotta you, it breaks my heart a little. 

Staci: I want to say something with a lot of conviction: God is not a God of confusion. I think there’s actually a Bible verse about that.

Dannah: Yeah, it’s actually 1 Corinthians 14:33. It reads, “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.”

Staci: So, if you feel confused about how to approach relationships with guys, or if the way you do it is disordered (like this girl’s online post), then you may not be approaching relationships with guys the way God wants you to.

Dannah: Today, we’re going to help you think about your relationships with boys through the truth about love in 1 Corinthians 13 as we learn our seventh secret about love based on this chapter of the Bible. Let’s dig right into our truth verse!

Staci: Let’s hear 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13.

Dannah: Wait! Staci, wait. 

Staci: What? I’m about to download some power here.

Dannah: But before you do, I want to share one last Greek word with my true girl. The Greek language lessons we’ve been having in this season have been so fun. 

Staci: You’re such a book geek.

Dannah: I know I am. 

Staci: Okay, what do ya got for me?

Dannah: Well, we’ve been talking about love for eight weeks now, and I’ve saved one of the best things for last.

Staci: Do tell.

Dannah: The English language has just one word for love. Love. We love our mom and our dad. We love our best friend. But we also sometimes say we love things like fluffernutter sandwiches—you know, the ones with peanut butter and marshmallow cream. I love me a good fluffernutter sandwich. 

Staci: I’m more of a peanut butter banana girl, but I get what you’re saying. The English language is wearing the word “love” out! Do you think we should pay a word extra when we work it so hard like that?

Your point is, we use the word “love” to express a wide range of feelings.

Dannah: Yes. Feelings! That’s the thing, feelings. Love according to the Greek is not a feeling. It’s a choice.

Staci: And you’re telling me this because it could solve our boy problems?

Dannah: It could help. Listen to this. In the Greek there are a lot of different words for love. When you want to say you love your friend in Greek you say, I phileo you! But if you want to say you love your family, you’d say I astorgos you. 

Staci: Ok, So i have heard about phileo love. That other word is new to me. 

Dannah: But you get the idea. A really important word for love is the one we’ve been reading about in 1 Corinthians 13. In this chapter the word for love is agape. 

Staci: I’ve heard that one, too!

Dannah: Well, I can tell you agape is not a feeling at all. It’s a choice.

Listen to this definition of agape love. “Agape is everlasting, sacrificial love.”

Staci: You mean like the kind Jesus showed us when He died for us?

Dannah: Exactly! It’s the kind of love that sees the need of someone else and moves towards it. It does something to meet that need.

Staci: Bam! We just went full circle. We talked about that in week #1 of this season!

Dannah: Yep, true love sees a need and meets it no matter what that costs. We don’t ever feel like helping our brother with his math. We choose to. And that’s the kind of love 1 Corinthians is talking about. Only that kind of love is patient or kind or able to cover secrets in silence. Those were all things we learned about, right?

Staci: So you’re saying . . .

Dannah: I’m saying that God’s definition of love is that it’s a choice but the world is telling us that love is built on feelings. That ends up being pretty confusing and causes twelve-year-old girls to write messages like the one I read earlier. 

The thoughts are like a ping pong game, going back and forth in girls’ minds: 

“I don’t want a boyfriend!” 

“I need to find a boyfriend!”

“I don’t want a boyfriend!” 

“I need to find a boyfriend!” 

You see the ping pong game? 

They’re being tossed around by their feelings rather than choosing agape love for boys. When we choose that, we’ll look at boys as a friend and brother in Christ if they know Jesus.

Staci: So that makes sense, but how do girls figure that out? How do you love a guy as a friend and not give into boy-crazy feelings?

Dannah: I’m glad you asked! I have a really simple way to check in with your heart in this. It’s called Up, In, and Out.

Staci: Up, In, and Out. I like it!

Dannah: First, look up to God and give Him all of your feelings about boys. He can handle them. Just tell Him, “God, I feel like I want a boyfriend.” “God, I feel like I don’t want a boyfriend.” “God, I’m on the boy-crazy train.” “God, I want to get off the boy-crazy train.” 

Just look up and give all of your feelings to God. Get it?

Staci: Got it, up. 

Dannah: Second, get really honest with yourself and look in your own heart and mind to see how you truly feel about being a good friend with a boy. Like, I think generally when we get down to it, what we really do want in our relationships with guys is to know them as friends, to respect them as friends, and not to dismantle or destroy the friendship by something romantic and silly, right?

Staci: Right. So, up, in . . .

Dannah: And third, look out! Look out for messages that tell you love for a boy can only be romantic. That our relationships with boys have to be based on feeling. That’s not truthful, and it doesn’t line up with God’s Word. That’s why we sometimes get confused. 

Staci: So, Look up to God. Look into your own heart. Look out for ungodly messages about love. 

Dannah: Yup.

Staci: Okay, Dannah. Something’s clicking! I’m ready to read our power verse of the day. It’s 1 Corinthians 13:13 (as I said earlier). It reads, 

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

True girl, do you see what I see? All those romantic movies and songs, they talk about forever love, but their message is way off. Only one kind of love is going to build a true happily ever after, agape. The kind that’s built on the way Jesus loves us, not the way Hollywood tells us to love!

Dannah: Exactly. Agape love lasts forever. It’s the greatest kind of love. We talked about that last week.

You’re True Girl challenge today is to talk to your mom about that boy-crazy train some girls jump on and take some time to journal out your own Up, In, and Out Heart Check-In. 

Now, to get in the mood for this talk with your mom, I want you and your mom to do something boys would love. 

Staci: Okay! Okay! A girl might love these things too. 

Dannah: True, but if your vocabulary doesn’t include Spyder Paintball Gun or other brands such as Tippmann, Ion, or Ultimate, this could be new territory for you, Staci.

Staci: Yeah, you and your mom could select from a round of paintball or laser tag or a heated race in a go-kart. Or just go out and shoot some hoops. Now, I could get into that!

Dannah: I’d probably go for laser tag. It’s honestly a family favorite. I’m not normally competitive, but when I start playing laser tag, I play to win. 

Staci: We should go laser tagging together!

Dannah: Yeah, I’m into it, as part of our True Girl challenge this week.

So true girl, after you have some fun with your mom, talk to her about the boy-crazy train and make a commitment to stay off of it.

Staci: Get on the God-crazy train. His love is the only love that will never fail you. And as you experience His love, you’ll be able to express the kind of love we’ve learned about as we memorized and studied 1 Corinthians together! And don’t forget—Look Up! Look in! And Look out!

Claire: Well, that’s it for season #4 of the True Girl podcast. 

I hope you’ll always remember that when you have questions about friendship, you can turn to 1 Corinthians 13 to find answers. To dive deeper into that chapter of the Bible, get a copy of Dannah’s book, Talking to Your Daughter about Best Friends & Means Girls. You’ll love the eight mom/daughter dates that help you explore true love.

The True Girl podcast is produced by Revive Our Hearts calling women of all ages to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness.

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