Love! What's it look like?

So, I’ve spent quite a bit of time lately talking about “Love”. Loving your neighbor as you love yourself, Loving our family in Christ as Christ loves them. The New Testament is loaded with statements about love it goes so far as to say in 1 John 4:8 If you do not love you do not know God because God is Love. Love, Love, Love, Love. We look at ourselves and we seek love through family, friends, mates in many cases we even seek it through our employers/employees. If we don’t have it we are willing to go to the extreme to get it or at least a substitute for it. The sixties had “Free Love”, The Beatles sang All we need is Love, and of course the oldest profession is where we “Pay for Love” Kids give into peer pressure searching for love. Today men and women before they get married claim they “Fell in Love” then they get divorced and tell their kids “We just fell out of Love” I looked up the Webster Dictionary’s definition of Love and this is what I found

1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties child> (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests b : an assurance of love
2 : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion
3 a : the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration b (1) : a beloved person —often used as a term of endearment (2) British —used as an informal term of address
4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others b : a person's adoration of God
5 : a god or personification of love

— at love : holding one's opponent scoreless in tennis

— in love : inspired by affection

Look at all those definitions. It’s clear Love is an over used adjective that nobody really knows the meaning. How can we follow Gods Command to Love if we don’t really know what Love is? I want to try and clear it up right now. Ok that probably wont happen so let me rephrase. I want to give my opinion of what Love is. When Christ was asked “What’s the greatest commandment?” he responded “Love the Lord your God with all your Heart mind, Soul and Strength. The second is like it “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” Christ spent his entire ministry telling us to “Love” “Love your neighbor as you Love yourself” In John 13 and in John 15 he COMMANDS us to Love as he has loved. The problem I think we have with Love is that for some reason we “Think” love is an emotion a feeling But if it’s an emotion or feeling then we don’t have a ton of control over it. If we don’t have complete control over it why would we be commanded to do it? Because of this I have come to the conclusion that Love is A CHOICE that’s it plain and simple Love is a choice or maybe a better definition would be Love is an ACTION that you choose to do. Think about it LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART. This means in all I do I need to look to God first. If I choose to put him first in everything I am loving him completely. If I choose to keep something to myself then I am loving God with everything EXCEPT that one thing? This is where it gets fun. Lets go to the command to “Love our neighbor as we love our self” In all of life I know what I would want someone to do for me. If I then choose to not do all the same things for ANYONE then where I am not doing for them I am not loving them where I am not loving them I am NOT LOVING GOD. God says to love him with our whole heart. Now lets go to a brother or sister in Christ. Here we are commanded to love them as Christ Loved them. This means we need to be willing to sacrifice for them. We usually stop at be willing to die for them because that’s easy rarely is anyone called to die for another. But what about giving up something we hold dear to help a brother in need? What about giving to someone in need and not expecting to ever see it again? What about answering that call at 3:00 in the morning to comfort a mourning or depressed or scared brother/sister? I’m on my way to work and find someone desperately needs me am I willing to risk my job to help? Brothers and sisters on the other side of the world need help in just the area you are skilled in. Are you willing to pack up and leave your job and friends to go help? What if you have no idea how you yourself will make ends meet? Where we are not willing to put ANY brother or Sister in Christ first (Not just the one’s we know) we are falling short of Gods command to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.

Are you overwhelmed yet? I know I am. I’m sitting here reading what I just typed and thinking “Wow, I could never do that.” Well thankfully we are living under the umbrella of Gods Grace so when we fall short we’re still good. However that is no excuse to not try and get there. It really is a great check of where we stand in how much we are willing to love God. When we recognize that we haven’t loved someone as God commands we now know where we can get to work on learning to love. Training ourselves to act. Then we grow in Love because we’ve learned to act. Whoops I failed to Love again God help me to grow my Love in this area. Thanks God! I can now love more. Shoot I didn’t love again! God can you help me again. Shew, Thanks again God. Continue to repeat the process.

What do you say gang? Are you willing to choose love even if you don’t feel like it. I think this is also what God calls our “Spiritual Act of Worship”. Just think about it if we can learn to Love like this we will turn our world “Upside Down”