Let’s talk about love…
Our culture’s view on love
I wonder what comes to your mind when you think of love? I know what comes to my mind: a song I heard on 94.7 the other day. Yes, sometimes I listen to Joburg’s number one hit station. And the hit at that time was “If it ain’t love, then why does it feel so good” by Jason Derulo. The rest of the lyrics are borderline ungodly so I’m not even going to discuss what he was on about. If it feels good according to Derulo it has to be love. Or how about this quote I saw on a poster? “Love is missing someone whenever you’re apart, but somehow feeling warm inside, because you’re close in heart.” We all tend to have all sorts of emotional, warm, fuzzy feeling associations when it comes to love.
Is love that feeling you get when a flood of uncontrollable tears rushes down your face as you exchange your vows on your wedding day? Or is it being overwhelmed by the joy of holding your firstborn for the first time in your arms; accompanied by another episode of uncontrollable tears of Joy? I’ve never experienced this, it happened to a friend of mine . Is that what love is?
It is what we see in “Rom coms”. It’s our music. It’s deeply entrenched in our hearts. I love this person. Things just feel right when I’m with them.
Our view of love leaves us wanting
Here’s the thing that we all know: this sort of thinking is not only deceptive and fleeting, it doesn’t help us when crunch time comes. Think about it. What happens when you look at your spouse with this thought, “I know I said ‘till death do us part’ but right now I feel like arranging the death part? What happens when your lovely bundle of joy can’t stop crying and you haven’t slept for days? Those feelings seem to become distant memories.
We therefore need to rethink our understanding of love. And we need to do so by looking at God’s perspective on the cross. So what does the Bible have to say about the emotion of love? Does it shed any light on the topic of love? And what are the practical things that can help us with this emotion?
The biblical view of love
Now this is going to revolutionise your thinking. It revolutionised my thinking last year. Love is not an emotion. I’m pretty sure that’s not news to you. You’ve heard it before. But do we understand it? Because when the bible speaks about the best way someone has displayed love, it shifts our attention to a man on a cross. And the bible claims that we can’t truly love others, or even understand love if we don’t understand that cross.
When God calls husbands to love their wives, he points them to the cross (Ephesians 5:25). That is clearly despite their feelings. When was the last time you felt like dying for someone? Look at how he encourages believers to love one another:
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (sacrifice that paid) for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4: 7-11)
True love is derived from ultimate love. And the ultimate way in which someone has loved was the cross. God moving towards underserving people and dying for them. It was selfless. It was for the benefit of others. It wasn’t about how we made him feel, in fact it was contrary. We were unlovable. And if we don’t understand ultimate love, we will remain trapped in what our culture tells us.
Practical things to help us.
So, I think we need to come to our senses. We need to look at that selfless man on the cross. And having seen the beauty of what he has done for selfish people like ourselves; we need to push against our culture’s selfish view of love. To look away from ourselves and to look to Christ. If I see the beauty of the cross I will not want to ‘seek my own way’. That is as practical as it gets. It has to begin with how much I grasp the message of the cross.
When I understand it, I will not ask what would Jesus do, but I will ask: what has Jesus done? And how does He call me to live and behave differently? So let’s do a little test to put some meat on it.
Let’s insert ‘I am’ in that Corinthians scripture where it says ‘love is’…
I am patient and kind; I do not envy or boast; I am not arrogant or rude. I do not insist on my own way; I am not irritable or resentful; I do not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-6)
How are you doing in that? In what places are you struggling? I think if I were to be honest. I fail this test. And the only way for me to do all of these is to look at the one who has done it all. He is the one I ask for strength.
Think of the times when you are tempted to seek your own way. Whether it’s being impatient with a family member, struggling to love your spouse, wanting to come back from work and zone out, or not desiring to engage in conversation with your child. At that moment ask yourself this question: how can I be loving at this very time?
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