When You Say You Love Me

I have a confession. I hate Valentine's Day. I don't remember a time in my life where I actually liked the "holiday." Maybe it's because it has the commercial shallowness of a chick-flick.

Regardless of why, it is actually more coincidental and not because of the holiday that I have been pondering on love . . . or the lack thereof.

I'm not sure what started it, except recognition of how easy it is to fall into routine, to make other things priority, which in turn sap my strength or distract me from wholeheartedly seeking God. It isn't really bad things. The activities are neither good nor bad, excepting how my heart responds. So I've begun praying again that the Source of love would give me love to love Him.

It's pathetic, actually. Can you imagine a spouse or child coming and asking you to help them to love you? Ouch! Yet God knows our lack and longs for our honesty. How freeing it is to live without needing to hide from the All-Seeing-Eye, because He also is Love.

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16)

So what does it mean to abide in love? Is love a romantic feeling or a loyal friendship?

The Bible shows us that love is an action, but not just any action is love.We think of helping the poor or being willing to die for someone or something as love. But Scripture says that all this can be done without love.

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^b but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3)

What then is love? 

Most of you could quote it:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

We can emphatically make two conclusions from this passage.

1. Hollywood knows nothing of love, either on or off set.
2. Humans cannot love like this, but God commands this kind of love from us.

Furthermore, if we love God, we will love others with this kind of love.

And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.  (1 John 4:21)

Do you think if love came naturally to us, it would be necessary for God to command it from us? And, if it doesn't come naturally, then how can we feel we can "fall out of love" or even "into love"?

Love is an alien attribute to human kind. We crave it. We demand others give it to us, but we have no source within ourselves to conjure up an unselfish love. Whatever emotion, obsession, or lust that we label love always comes with a price-tag.

What's the point? As with everything, we cannot afford to disconnect from God. We need to have love. We are designed to give love, but it is only from the Source that we can get love.

If today you feel love towards someone, it's great to feel that, is it not? But it won't last.

"Ironically," in my church bulletin today was an article from Gary Chapman (author of The Five Languages of Love). In it, he shares about a man who came to him saying he no longer loves his wife.

Since this husband couldn't manufacture warm, romantic feelings, he concluded that his marriage was over. . . True love, the kind of love that keeps a couple together for a lifetime, is not a feeling but an attitude. It says, With the help of God, I'm going to do everything I can to enhance the life of my spouse. . . . .

Remember that warm, romantic feelings are the result of love, not the essence of love. . . . The good news is that whatever God commands, He enables us to do.

That is good news and applies to all our relationships, even our relationship to God—do all you do for His glory whether you feel good or not. It also is a love I long to give to my friends and family—one that loves without requiring an equal return. May God make it so in all of us!