Love: What About Enemies and Unsaved?

You knew this was coming, kid. We gotta talk about love for the people we may not “want” to love.

We know we are supposed to love our enemies and the Bible does tell us why. It’s a standard thing: God loves us all, and we should as well.

As I have said, love is a choice…perhaps more than a feeling. We surely don’t feel like loving the “bad guys”, but here we are. Jesus calls us on it too. Matthew 5:43-48. In there, He asks us two questions. 1: If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? 2: And if you greet only your people, what are you doing more than others? He compares us doing that to tax collectors and pagans. Yikes.

Jesus then tells us to have perfect love.

Let’s talk about something though. It would appear that God holds more value in loving people who are so called not easy to love versus loving people who are so called easy to love.

Continue reading →

Love: Is There True Love?

I’ve been asking people recently in preparation of this post if they thought true love existed, in a romantic sense. The answers were mostly “no”. As a person who envisions dying a virgin, I happen to think there is true love.

I think the original definition of love plays a factor in this. I think this definition covered all forms of love, which is why I love the wording of it. It wasn’t too specific to anything and yet it covered everything.

In any relationship, you hope the person you are with would match that definition of love. Lover, sister, mother, friend. No matter what, we want that love.

Because of that, yes, true love exist. Right?

Okay, but romantic love does have some extra…flair…to it. I think I need more help, here. Let’s look at a biblical reference to the relationship between husband and wife.

Ephesians 5 is really good for this. Let’s break down love for husband and wife.

Ephesians 5:22-24 tells us wives should submit to their husbands, just as the church to Jesus. 25-30 tells the husband to treat the wife as himself.

This is a perfect thing if done the right way.

I think we need more, don’t we? Also, we can talk about what this love is, but we still have to answer if it can exist. Let’s continue.

For a husband, his goal is to basically treat her like his most prized possession…yet, NOT an object. He takes care of her. Listens to her. Supports her. Because she is viewed as one with him, this is very important.

This goes beyond sex. In fact, sex is only a part of romantic love and should not be the center of it.

Continue reading →

Love: How God Loves Us

We understand what love is as well as who can love and why to love.

I mentioned at the beginning of the series that God is love. We will never truly understand love because God is love and we can never understand God because His ways are higher than our ways. That’s why this series is a tricky one.

Yet, we have some examples of how God loves us. I guess we can say actions speak louder than words.

Probably the most famous example of God’s love is John 3:16. God loved the world so much that He sent His Son to die in our place so that we can have eternal life. When we reflect on the fact that Jesus is God, this means that, basically, God sacrificed Himself for us.

When always consider the ultimate sacrifice as the ultimate sign of love. God sets this perfect example of such love. When you look at the definition of love, you can see God matched the criteria.

God really doesn’t have to do anything else to show love, yet He does. Why does He love us? Because He does…but also, because He is love.

Considering that definition, God embodies that. When we think of that, we think of Him…or we should. It’s really interesting. I talked about how the way we treat others is really how we treat God. Not only does He do such things, He expects love in return. If we don’t love His people…the people of His likeness, then we truly are not loving God. Makes sense to me.

Why we love people is a mystery and it probably will always be simply because love is a mystery. God’s love is likely too much to comprehend. Yet, we are capable of producing this love. It is the very same love so, as we love, we are love. We become the fruit we produce.

Oh boy, let me stop right here.

Love: Why We Should Love Others

I’m going to share a few verses with you explaining why it is important to love others.

But first, some of my thoughts. Love is more of a verb than a feeling to me. You must make the choice to love someone. That “feeling” is often paired with hormones and such. You don’t always feel like loving your friend when he gets on your nerves.

Ha, God definitely chooses to love us. As much as we mess up? If he felt like loving, we’d be dead by now. He chooses to love us despite our mistakes. He loved us so much he decided to send His only Son to save us all. So, now that we know about love, let’s talk about it.

Matthew 22:39 says (from NKJV): And the second is like, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.

What does that mean? Well, we love ourselves. At least, we should. And, as we respect and love ourselves we should be showing this same love to others. But we’re still at the point of, “Why?” Why should I love someone I don’t even know?

Continue reading →

Love: Can You Truly Love?

A question about love is can we love? The answer is: It depends.

In an older post, I talked about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. I talked about how, without the Holy Spirit, there is no fruit to produce. The Spirit acts as the seed in order to produce such fruit.

One of the fruits of the Spirit is love. Therefore, the only way to produce such fruit is to have that seed in you. If not, then you cannot love, as the Bible would describe.
If you have no seed, can you produce fruit?

Accepting the seed opens up the possibility to love. Yet, we still must make the decision to love. Producing such fruit takes time. We must water it every day. Practice love. It takes practice, buddy. It’s more than a feeling (I’ll talk about that statement later in the series). We know the definition of love so that statement shouldn’t be a surprise.

Those without the seed may produce something that is similar to love, but it can’t be actual love and it cannot be sustained to be love. This is a dark truth about such a thing as love.

Love: What Is Love?

Before we begin tackling love, we need to define it.

You should know something about love…and how I view it…

God is love.

One could say “I’m not here for some religious crap” and that’s fine. However, this series is not a sermon. However, I do use a biblical foundation and if that’s something you want no parts in, you can turn around, though I don’t recommend it.

There is one passage that gives a clear look, or as clear as possible, of what love is.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NKJV):

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;  does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

That’s love. As you can tell, we don’t always love…or at least show it. Let’s break it down.

Continue reading →