Love.

Ironically, we all crave it, yet few understand it.

Love is THE MOST sought after reality.  And yet there is a chronic lack of experiencing, delighting, and enjoying it.  For, even when one thinks they possess it, they may well be deceived.  They may well possess what they believe to be love while lacking the substance of true love.

For love has been diluted, polluted, and distorted.  Love, for our culture today, has been reduced to nothing more than infatuation, lust, and emotional delight. 

But is this really all that love is? AND if it is, are we not let down and disappointed by such a reality? Is there not MORE to love than mere emotion and feeling, which is as fleeting and fickle as a fart in the in wind? (Pardon the expression…)

CS Lewis, in all his brilliance, has defined love best.  He said,

“Love is unselfishly choosing for another’s highest good.”

C.S. Lewis

Biblically speaking, he is one hundred percent spot on. 

Culturally speaking, he is ridiculed and scorned.

For in this definition, NOTHING is stated of emotion, feeling, pleasure. In this definition, love is an act of the will, of volition, to CHOOSE…NOT FOR SELF, but for another.

Under this definition, love…

  • WOULD NOT steal the affections of another person’s spouse.
  • WOULD NOT toy with another’s emotions but would guard and protect them.
  • WOULD NOT engage in premarital, extramarital sexual relationship but would protect the other persons purity and the sanctity of this gift given for marriage alone.
  • WOULD NOT engage in same sex relationships.  It may feel like love, but it is a violation of God’s created order and a degrading of the other person’s being.
  • WOULD NOT engage in viewing of illicit images and videos.  This violates and degrades of the value of the person in the image.  It is using people for ones own selfish ends.
  • WOULD NOT be so quick to abandon covenants through divorce.
  • WOULD be quick to forgive
  • WOULD be quick to serve
  • WOULD be quick to seek reconciliation
  • WOULD be quick to repay evil with good
  • WOULD be quick to die to self, even for one’s enemies.
  • WOULD not recognize friend from foe but would seek the HIGHEST good for ALL.

Is this how “love” looks in our world?

Love in our culture looks more like lust and self seeking of pleasure to me.  Love in our culture looks more like a feeling that one cannot control.  Love in our culture looks more like a justification to pursue whatever feels good regardless of whether it is right or true.

No, love rejects ones own feeling when it leads to sin and it CHOOSES to do what is right, to protect, to serve, to put others HIGHEST good before one’s own feelings and desire, before ones own wants and interests. 

We have reversed it.  And we seem to be applauding such a reversals as forward progress in our humanity.

What a shame it is that in our foolishness, in our professions of wisdom, we have wrought more damage than we could ever imagine.

Love is about more than emotion and feeling.  Love is about more than lust and pleasure.  Love is about placing the highest good of others before our our own desire for pleasure.  Love seeks another’s highest good, whether that always feels good initially or not. 

Love looks like Jesus.

Abba, bring us back to love, true love as defined by you, Jesus.  Love that did not feel good when it caused Father and Son to be separated.  Love that did not feel good when it caused Father to crush His own Son upon the cross for our sins.  Love that did not feel good when Son had to endure the limitations of human flesh, the temptations of being human, the rejection of friends and comrades, the guilt and shame of sins he never committed, the divine and just wrath of his own father, and who had to experience DEATH that he did not deserve. 

Abba, bring us back to a love that seeks the HIGHEST good of others, regardless of the cost to ourselves. Bring us back to a love that CHOOSES upon that which is right instead of that which feels good. Bring us back to YOUR love and let us live and serve from there. May we reject the perversion of the world’s ideals of love and compassionately draw them back to the place where true love is found.