Don’t Dumb Down Love
As I studied love more deeply, I was struck over and over by love’s profundity and practicality. It is completely inexhaustible, imminently powerful, and easily obtainable. Yet we have dumbed down love to mean little more than a feeling, a passing desire, an affection based on our own sentiments, whims, or emotions. We have limited it to a strong attachment when in fact it is the sustaining force of all existence. The Bible says God is love (1 John 4:8)—and it is impossible to overstate the magnitude of that statement. There is no greater power in heaven or earth than love.
Unfortunately, we often throw the word around like it’s cheap.
“I love football.”
“I love ice cream.”
“I love my new car.”
“I love that person.”
“I love a good movie.”
“I love jewelry.”
We would be wise to heed John the apostle’s words when he wrote, as we saw earlier:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
—1 John 2:15–16
Love is not a feeling or a special inclination. Rather, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).
God loves us with an everlasting love, wrote Jeremiah the prophet:
The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness, I have drawn you.”
—Jeremiah 31:3
As Christians, we do not have the option of relegating love to second place. Jesus said in John 13:34–35 (KJV):
A new commandment I give unto you [not a suggestion or consideration], that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another.
In Matthew 22:36–40, a lawyer asked Jesus,
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
But a few days later, Jesus gave His followers a new commandment: to love one another as Jesus loves us (John 13:34). This love can only be attained by the new birth and the Holy Spirit because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5, KJV). That kind of love is a sign of our faith and unmistakably marks the life of a believer. Without it, the world will not even know we are Christians.
In his book, The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis identified the four primary types of love, based on the following Greek words:
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Eros—passion, lust, sexual attraction, and physical love
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Phileo—friendship love, the kind shared between close family members and friends, characterized by trust and loyalty
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Storge—parental love for children; protective and in many ways selfless, like the love of a mother for her child
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Agape—God’s kind of love; compassionate and empathetic, especially toward the weak and down-and-out. It is unselfish and expects nothing in return.
The love Jesus spoke of is agape love and transcends even our human attempts to define it. It is the essence of a perfect God who gives us His affection, attention, and eternal blessings in spite of how badly we sometimes treat Him. So, the apostle John wrote:
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.… Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another
—1 John 4:7–8, 11, KJV
And,
We have known and believed the love that God has for us. —1 John 4:16
God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear.
—1 John 4:16–18, KJV
The sobering truth is that love is the single sign that you and I are walking with the Lord. John wrote:
We know that we have passed from death [spiritual death] unto life [everlasting life], because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
—1 John 3:14–15, KJV
To learn more about Don Colbert, MD’s latest book, Dr. Colbert’s Spiritual Health Zone, visit Mycharismashop.com