Love is more than a feeling

Love means different things to different people. The emotionally-driven say love is a feeling. Those who are volitionally determined say love is a choice. The intellectual will say love is a way of thinking. In some respects, all are correct, yet biblical love is more than that.

Everyone knows John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” In this verse, love is the Father giving the Son, and the Son giving His life. Love is giving all, giving sacrificially. It is not about what the lover wants, but what the object of that love needs.

This describes the heart of God, but the Bible is clear that God expects His people to love like that too. He says so in 1 John.

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18)

Love’s actions might seem to last only a short time, but the self-sacrificing motivation behind them is an abiding quality. Love is forever the way that God is, and for those who know Him, this love will also abide forever. Love is eternal and considered the greatest virtue. 1 Corinthians 13:13 says, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

No wonder love is first on the list of fruit produced in Christians by the Holy Spirit. It is out of love that the rest of these characteristics flow.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:22-24)

I notice again how this list shows that love and even the other qualities described have an element of sacrifice to them. In order to be filled with the Holy Spirit and have this fruit in my life, I need to crucify or put to death all my old fleshy and sinful desires. Love cannot abide with selfishness, greed, worry (a form of control), impatience and so on. For love to have a free rein, I must give up whatever I think is best and allow the Holy Spirit to fill me.

Filled with the Holy Spirit is my preferred place to be, yet it is also a commandment from Jesus Christ that I must obey. He says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

In this command, Jesus reveals another important quality of love. It is the way people will know that I am a Christian. If I am selfish and cling to my own way, plans, things, stuff and whatever else is mine instead of willingly giving and sacrificing myself for others, then people have every right to question my claim to be a Christian. Jesus gave them that right.

Not only that, I should question my claim myself. 1 John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.”

Like self-discipline, this kind of love can be developed and nurtured in small steps. How many times a day am I faced with an opportunity to insist on my way or to yield to the needs of others? It happens on the freeway, in shopping centers, when the phone rings, and even while I am making supper. God is making me increasingly aware that love is a choice.

He also shows me that it is a state of mind, a humility that accepts the idea that my way is not reliable and not to be leaned upon (as Proverbs 3:5 says). I need to think thoughts that promote the choice to love.

Love is also an emotion, howbeit a fickle one. I sometimes feel like loving/giving and sometimes feel the joy of it, but I cannot count on that. God’s reward for love cannot always be a deep sense of personal satisfaction or that warm fuzzy feeling either, or it would become self-centered.

Instead, the reward of love is knowing that I have obeyed Christ and pleased Him. Love shows others who I am, but more importantly, who He is and what He is like. Because He always loves me and because He gave Himself for me, I must consider love is, more than anything else, a practical thing, and then express it to others — for their sake and for His glory.