Love, Love, Love

Originally, I was going to retype my notes from church this morning and post them. The message today was on loving one another, and it was very good, don't get me wrong, but then tonight, my best friend and I went and saw the movie "Crazy, Stupid Love" and it really got me thinking. So often as Christians, the Bible, and parents, and pastors are constantly telling us that we are supposed to "love one another", but in order to know how to love, one must know love, and something that helps us know love is knowing what love is not.

The way I see it, there are two views on love: there is the world's view and then there is God's view. God's view came first, after all, He came first. He loved Adam when He created him, and there, in the very beginning was the most perfect, true kind of love, the love of God. Now, over time, as the world progressed and culture progressed, love slowly became twisted into this warped, corrupted view of love which society has today.

The world's view on love is everywhere. Turn on the TV and you'll see The Bachelor, where love is just waiting in a long line of women, who are just there as prizes to be won, played with for a short period of time and discarded. A show where the questions asked are shallow, but good enough to keep audiences interested. Go to a bookstore and pick up the Twilight series, where love is immortal, mysterious, and a little bit on the dangerous side. Go see the latest romantic comedy (Crazy, Stupid Love perhaps?) where love is simply complimenting strings of women only in order to get them into bed; where sex is a common activity between strangers, rather than something cherished between husband and wife.

In C.S. Lewis' book "The Four Loves" (which I still haven't read all of, but plan on finishing at some point in my life), Lewis discusses in each section one of four loves: Affection, Agape, Eros, and Friendship. True love in the marital sense includes all four of these loves, and yet the world has watered down love into Eros (or sexual) love only. To the world, the only purpose of relationships is sex, even some Christians who believe sex is only for marriage, have given into the world's view of love and try to see how far they can go without going "too far".

But love is not about sex at all. Yes, I said it; love if far more than the physical. What is love, then? Well I surely do not claim to know all there is to know about that, but I do know what God says in His Word to be true.

"...God is love." {1 John 4:8}

"And this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." {1 John 5:3} 

"Let us love one another, for love is from God..." {1 John 4:7}

"...love covers a multitude of sins." {1 Peter 4:8}

"For God gave us a spirit...of love." {2 Timothy 1 :7}

God is love, and God's love is full of goodness and purity. God's kind of love is unending, undeserving, and unconditional. God loves like no man or woman could ever love, and yet, He calls us to love like Him, because His love is perfect. God calls women to love their husbands, and husbands to love their wives. He calls parents to love their children, and children to love and respect their parents. He calls the rich to love the poor, and the poor to love the rich. He calls us not only to love each and every person, but to look on and love each and every person as He sees them and as He loves them.

"Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." {1 John 3:18}

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." {John 13:34}

Earlier, I mentioned learning what love is by learning what love is not. The best place I have found to see this is in the chapter of love: 1 Corinthians 13.

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
{1 Corinthians 13:4-7}

Now re-read those few verses. Instead of saying "love" say your own name. Do you feel like a liar? Convicting, isn't it?