Love is a prevailing theme in humans. It transcends all cultures and all times. If you pod up a few humans, guaranteed at least one of them is thinking about love…
To be fair, they might also have been thinking about food, shelter, politics, power-plays and all the other topics that span the experience of being human. But love? It was there in the beginning with God, and paramount in Jesus’ teachings. It is something we are obsessed with our entire lives from the age we can first move around until the day we are laid in the grave.
Am I loved by you? Do I have someone to love? Am I loveable? Who am I supposed to love? Who do I not love?
If you were astute, you noticed that these pressing questions all have the word “I” in common. This is how humans think of love – always in reference to a central “me”. Frankly, this aligns with modern, western conceptions of love.
We fall into (and out of) love in popular media as if we are dumb animals swept up in something out of our control. Advertising is quick to point out how my breath smells, my clothes are wrong, and I am simply not interesting enough to be loveable – apparently, if I will just change myself (i.e. buy the product), I will also get swept into some magical place where I am treasured by someone (hopefully sexy and smart…rich is a bonus!). Note, however, that this love is never about how I behave towards some other person – it is always about how I feel or am perceived.
This is not how scripture teaches love. We must come to grips with the way God defines and commands “love” once we become Christians. If we are to follow Jesus in His way at all, we must understand what God says is “love”.
First, “love” is not about me – my feelings, my comfort, my sense of being important or valued. Love is about how I behave towards others. Here are just a few examples:
~ There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13 NLT). Love here is self-sacrificing for someone else.
~ 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. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 NIV). Love in this sense means I control myself so that I can strengthen those around me, lift them higher, and make more of them.
~ …Love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8 NLT). Here love says I am to forgive when others hurt me so that we can stay in relationship together.
Had we time and space to scour scripture in this blog, we would see that God consistently teaches that love is always in relation to someone else’s good. Contrary to the normal self-centered bent of humans (where love is about me) – love is about how I treat others. In short, it isn’t about what I am getting, it is about what I am giving away. Biblical love – the kind of love Jesus exhorted us to exhibit — is a full-out commitment to someone else’s good. It is certainly not something you garner for yourself.
Further – and quite shockingly to those of us raised on the world’s view of love — you give it away long past the point of equity or return to you. In fact, scripture goes crazy and says, “love your enemies.” [ Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27, Proverbs 25:21.] Love your enemies!? The ones that wrong me, betray me, stab me in the back to get something for themselves!? Yep. Those ones. The very ones who do not behave lovingly towards you are the ones God says we are to love.
I think it is easy for humans to be obsessed with love when we think it is something that is for our own comfort and well-being. We are decidedly less obsessed with sacrificing, forgiving 70-times-7 times, being humble and meek, and praying good over our enemies. Yet this is the role Jesus modeled for us – it is the place He calls us to. It is the crucible on which we will know how mature we have grown in our walk of faith. If you dare, ask yourself this hard question: how am I doing on love? Not “love” as a noun that we receive from other people (My fans love me! My children love me! My dogs love me!), but as a verb, something we do unto others.
It is OK to be obsessed with love – so long as your obsession is with God’s definition of love in His Kingdom.