02/04/2010

Tell Me About Love - Part I

We begin this new series focusing on the real meaning of love according to the Bible.

If I were to ask any of you what you thought love was I am sure that all of you would have a definition for me that would be focused around two things: your emotional feeling for a person, and your relationship with that person. You love your spouse, your children, your parents, your friends; probably even your cat or dog.

You would also probably tell me that the reason you love this person is because you feel so good around them. You enjoy their company, you like talking and interacting with them, you love the way they make you feel. This becomes the primary reason why you love them. If we are talking about your spouse you also may add romantic feelings to this love equation, and a clear picture of love is created.

These are usually the foundations from which we build our attitudes about love. We see the warm and gooey side of love and think that this is what our feelings of love should be for others. This is very common for most of us.

The problem arises when we try to take this understanding of love and apply it to the things that Jesus teaches. Consider the people that Jesus tells us that we are to love. For example in Matthew 5:43-44 He tells us:

⁴³ "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' ⁴⁴ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,…

In Matthew 22:39 He tells us to “ ' Love your neighbor as yourself. ”

Love my enemies? My neighbor? I don't know about you, but some of my neighbors I can barely even tolerate; how am I supposed to love them? And then I am to love my enemies as well? How do I love people that are so heinous in my eyes that I see them as enemies?

These are hard questions to answer because we are trying to answer them through our definition of love. We are trying to show warm, gooey, sappy love, based on our emotions to people who we may not even like as people. Can we do this? The answer is clearly no.

Consider some of the people that have come across your life. You may have been abused by someone; are you to love in an adoring, doting way? Or how about someone who killed a member of your family? Are you to run up and hug them and tell them how much you care for them and wish they were having dinner with you? That would be madness.

There is an important ingredient to this as well. That is the fact that Jesus said that we should love our enemies. I don't know about you, but I am not going to adore someone I think of as an enemy. Does it make sense? “John got me fired, and he is a real jerk, but I hope we have a BBQ this weekend.” That would be absurd.

What this means to us is that the kind of love that Jesus is speaking about has to be something that is different than an emotion-centered type of love. It has to be something that allows us dislike another strongly, yet still be able to love them.

Look at God for example. In Romans 9:13 Paul quotes Malachi 1:2-3 where we are told:

¹³ Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

God loved Jacob, but He hated Esau. But we are also told that God is love. 1 John 4:8:

⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

How could God hate someone when His very essence is one of love? This seems to be in opposition to each other. The answer to this comes in Matthew 5:45:

⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

You see God shows us here that love is not about our emotional feelings for someone. This is how we think of love, but this is not God's definition of love at all. Instead, God loves in that He does things that are loving even to those that He dislikes or “hates.”

Look at Esau and Jacob. Did it rain on the crops of both of these two brothers? Yes, of course it did. And did they both have sunny days? Yes, God gave both of them this. So God blessed both men with the same things, despite the fact that He did not like one, and loved the other.

You see love is an action. Love is doing good things for others even if you don't like them. This does not require you to think of them as a great person. It just asks you to do something nice for them, in spite of the feelings that you have for them.

This is actually much easier to do. Consider what God tells us about how He loves. He makes it rain on the righteous and unrighteous. He makes it sunny for the evil and good. What this tells us is that when He is doing something, He just blesses the “wicked” with the same things that He gives to the good. In essence He does not go out of way to give a special blessing to the wicked or the good. He just does the same thing for everyone. This truly shows us that God does not show favoritism.

Now are there times that God blesses some with things that others do not receive? Of course, but everyone still receives blessings from God no matter who they are, and we can do the same thing.

Are you out helping one or two neighbors you like by shoveling their driveway? Then help someone you don't like as well. Did you bring in cookies for your friends at work? Then give some to all your co-workers. Did you buy a Christmas card for your sister? Then give one to your brother and to your cousins as well.

You see all it takes is to do the same thing for everyone. When you do this you are acting as God does. You are understanding that love has nothing to do with how you feel about someone, but instead is about demonstrating love through action. It is through this process that we are able to even love our enemies, because we are not bound to try to like them. We can just do the same good things for them that we do for others, and by doing this we demonstrate true love.

I know we live in a society that has romanticized love so much that it is hard to separate true love from emotional love, but when we do this we are able to see that we can love all, even those we hate. This helps us to demonstrate God in all His glory, and really makes us true Christians.