What’s Love Got to Do with It?

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

In 1984, Tina Turner recorded a song that reached reached #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks, beginning September 1 of that year. It was her first solo #1, making her the oldest female artist, at 44, to top the chart at the time. The hit also reached #1 in Canada and Australia, and was ranked 1984’s second-best-performing song. 

The lyrics said, “What’s love got to do with it, got to do with it? What’s love but second-hand emotion? “What’s love got to do with it, got to do with it? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?”

Love Everywhere

Valentine’s Day often brings up that elusive life question: What’s love got to do with it? Who even really understands what love is all about? We should. We’re surrounded by it, and we instinctively know that it’s much more than roses and chocolate, or even the perfect card.

Songs

A lot of songs say a lot of different things about love. Numerous popular songs feature “love” in the title, spanning various genres and decades. Iconic examples include “I Will Always Love You” (Whitney Houston), “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (Queen), and “All You Need Is Love” (The Beatles). Other hits range from “Love Story” (Taylor Swift) to “The Theme from Love Story” (Henry Mancini) to “Whole Lotta Love” (Led Zeppelin).

And who could forget Jackie DeShannon’s “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”

Movies

There are movies about love: loving your friends, loving your siblings, loving your pet, loving your spouse, loving your job, loving your country … and losing any or all of the above … and (sometimes) getting them back. There’s the aforementioned Love Story (Remember “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”? Ha! Right!) There’s even a movie called Warm Bodies (2013) where a zombie falls in love with a human, and no, I have not seen it.

Books

Famous books about love span the centuries and genres, exploring passion, heartbreak, and devotion through iconic characters and narratives. Classics like Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights define the genre, while modern favorites include Outlander and The Notebook. There are even “how-to” books about love that focus on improving relationships through emotional intelligence, communication, and intentional actions. Topping the list are The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman for understanding affection, All About Love by Bell Hooks for redefining love, and Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson for relationship repair. And guess what: Love Story appears on this list as well!

What’s love got to do with it? I love music; I love movies; and I love to read. However, I don’t think the world can come up with a perfect way to honor love in song or on film, and I don’t think there’s a book that can truly describe what real, selfless, sacrificial love is all about. Well, there is one.

The Book 

 It says:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (I Corinthians 13).

It also says:

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

“This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister” (I John 4:7-21).

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

So really, what’s love got to do with it? As we consider Valentine’s Day and the annual celebration of love, let’s remember that the greatest Valentine ever given was not the Tina Turner type: not second-hand emotion or a broken heart. It wasn’t about roses, or chocolate, or even the perfect card. The greatest Valentine ever given was from God as He sent His Son to us. “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). We should also consider the Valentine that He might want to receive from us–to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31, Luke 10:27, Matthew 2:37-39)–even better than roses and chocolate!

God bless you and cause you to feel His great love today and always.