LOVE
I’ve done some thinking about love. Everyone has the idea that love is something you fall into, an emotional tumble that carries you into itself. And only for love and having fallen into it should you marry or make a strong commitment. This is the reigning and virtually only concept that is unwavering in what we are groomed to believe.
If this is true then:
• Why is the divorce rate over 50%, and even higher in the church?
• Why do arranged marriages seem to work out so often?
• Why is God, who is Love, for many Christians invisible and seemingly beyond the grasp of human interaction? Why does He choose this?
• Why do teenagers in their chain dating tell dozens of people they love them and soon separate?
• Why does love so often seem to fail?
• Why aren’t Christians vibrantly awestruck by our God?
• How can God still love the worms called the human race despite our intentional, habitual, rejection of Him?
• Why do camp highs fail?
Perhaps love isn’t an emotional slippery slope of wonderful feelings that we fall into. If so, then those feelings become the driving factor and foundation of the relationship, its physicality, emotional/psychological structure, and commitment. (Jeremiah 17:9-10 “A man’s heart is deceitful.)Then those emotions, which are fickle and based on feelings, circumstances and what they make us feel, comes to the extent of that fall and begins to waiver. This puts a selfish and unreal expectation on the other to keep us happy and flowing in those feelings, turning that relationship from equal giving to equal harvesting of each other. This, of course slams to a halt when both feel worn out, used, drained, taken advantage of and hurt buy each other’s selfishness. Then the claim is that they have fallen out of love. What was uncontrollable to fall into was also uncontrollable to fall out of and all responsibility and blame is negated to love instead of the parties who supposedly fell in it.
God’s word says that “love never fails” – so this can’t be love. Especially when this scenario cycles through several times causing broken hearts, damaged people, divorces, split families, and etc.
Perhaps we’re not meant to be the passive fallers. Perhaps God gave us the authority over our lives and opportunity to actively lay hold of what His word says is the greatest gift. Perhaps love . . . is a choice. Maybe it’s a daily decision that continues to answer “yes” in the face of time, circumstances, the lack of emotion, and hardship, simply because we choose to. We can’t be lead by our hearts. Proverbs says that our hearts are deceptive. Maybe we’re not meant to be a faller, passively being led as a bridled horse by a feeling, but a champion that actively makes a choice and leads his own heart.
I believe that the fun, fuzzy feelings are good, but are meant to compliment the commitment – the commitment that’s anchored in something stable – instead of the commitment complimenting the feelings.
This brings up another point which is the core and most crucial point of all of this. What is the foundation of such a commitment that would say “yes” in the face of life and its worst attacks? Since we’ve debunked the idea that love and its commitment can be anchored in how you feel about each other, then what? Physical attraction which is competitory, fake, and is as fickle as the emotions that spur it? The codependent need for “another” to fill your gaps, which parallels our earlier discussion of a relationship becoming self-fulfilling/selfish and destructive? What thing could be so unwavering that when the commitment of daily choice is anchored in it, the choice is always “yes, I will choose you.”?
This brings up an interesting thought. Isn’t that what “I love you” is really saying, “I choose you.”? It’s what love whispers to a significant other or is always reconfirmed with the hug of a good friend. It’s shown daily when a parent works two jobs to provide food and school books and what God speaks to us with His forgiveness. “I choose you.” This phrase, spoken or not, is a crucible which forms the identity of the chooser and their relationship to the chosen. The understanding of the one doing the choosing is that they are giving themselves to the chosen – setting themselves apart for them. Ironically the biblical word for “setting apart” is “holiness”.
For a brief moment, let’s discuss God. His character is both (NO WAY!) love and holiness. “God is love,” “God is a holy God,” “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord” (3x = “perfect” in Jewish understanding) This God of love and holiness created mankind “in His image” to be creatures after His heart. True love and holiness are not of man apart from God. They are an extension of God in man. We don’t have the essence or ability to create or act/move in either of these. They can only be from our creator, and only because He gave us the authority to choose them.
For example: A teenage guy chooses to wait for marriage to have sex.
Look at what’s happening here. If love is a choice then he is already extending love to his future bride. He has done this by saying, “I choose you” and only you (hear the commitment?). But, this is coupled by the unspoken truth that by choosing her he has set himself aside for only her. He has chosen her (love) and set himself aside for her (holiness). By following God’s principles, he is reflecting the character of God.
Now, what better foundation, what unmovable anchor could this love and holiness be set in than He who is these qualities and extends them to us? Who better than He who said to us, “I choose you” and will set myself aside and give my life for you. No matter how messed up, how uglied by sin, no matter how you reject me, “I choose you” and set myself apart for you.”
“No greater love is this than a man would lay down his life for a friend.”
“Now this is love, that Jesus died for us.”
If our love/commitment and holiness is anchored in that kind of God, then it will be unmovable in our relationships with our families, friends, spouses, and . . . God. But, what does that mean? How do we make God and His love and holiness the foundations? How do we “anchor” in Him?
Let’s consider for a moment how Jesus (God) answered the question, “What is the greatest commandment?” He said, “Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” Don’t miss the connecting phrase, “And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.” The second is like the first. Remember, we are created to be like God. Loving people will be like how we love God. Our love to others will reflect the love that we give to our Lord.
First, before our daily choosing of our spouse, or friends, or anyone else, before setting ourselves apart for them, we choose God. We say “Yes” to Him and set ourselves apart for Him first! We bring the unworthy, incomplete pieces of ourselves to Him as an offering and He makes pure and whole those things with Himself and gives Himself to us, His character, His heart – stamps His image on us – so that we begin to operate and function in His character. Then when we say, “I choose you” (I love you), and “I set myself apart for you” to a spouse, friend, family member, those commitments are extensions (Like/perfected reflections of what we’ve given to God) of an unmovable, loving, holy, perfect, omnipotent God.
Then the concept of an anchor even no longer hold validity because our love/holiness toward that person are not merely connected to God, but are extensions of Him. Wow.
Take a moment and reflect on the earlier asked questions and apply this concept. Does it answer them?
• Why is the divorce rate over 50%, and even higher in the church?
o Because most of us don’t know what love is. Our commitment to choose our spouse and be set apart for them is not anchored in/coming from our Source.
• Why do arranged marriages seem to work out so often?
o Because, for whatever motivation, they must actively choose each other outside of feelings.
• Why is God, who is Love, for many Christians invisible and seemingly beyond the grasp of human interaction? Why does He choose this?
o Because we reflect on our relationship with God with the same screwed up principals that we view Hollywood love with. That it’s based on the feeling of love instead of a daily decision to choose Him.
• Why do teenagers in their chain dating tell dozens of people they love them and soon separate?
o Wrong concept of love. They are falling for the feeling.
• Why does love so often seem to fail?
o Love in the form that God intended does not. Feelings fail.
• Why aren’t Christians vibrantly awestruck by our God?
o We’re waiting on the feeling of falling in love.
• How can God still love the worms called the human race despite our intentional, habitual, rejection of Him?
o Because He has already said, “I choose you” and does not base His love on feelings, but on His loving choice to set Himself apart for us (His character of holiness)
• Why do camp highs fail?
o We rely on keeping the feeling and abandon choosing Him daily after we get home.
Wowing side note:
God who is holy cannot be with what is not holy. When we sinned and fell from holiness with God, we were instantly and irreversible separated (as with a chasm) from Him. For if we, who are unholy, were to stand in His presence, we would be utterly consumed. However, God in His love crossed/bridged the gap through Jesus His Son to be a substitute in our place, to take the punishment that we were due, to be a sacrifice for us. His blood covers our sin and makes us holy so that we can connect with and have relationship again with God. We are able to be with He who is holy.
From this understanding, someone could ask, “If God is all powerful, why is He so rigid about our holiness. Why not just build a relationship with us despite our tainted status?” Don’t you see, it’s because His holiness is stemming from His love. Remember, God is love. It is the essence of His character the epitome of who He is from which He takes action. For Him to love us, to say “I choose you” He MUST set Himself apart for us. That is the understood commitment that comes with choosing whom you will love.
In our rebellion against Him (sin) we chose another (idolatry), we chose sin/ourselves over Him. We left the relationship. We stopped saying, “I choose you” to Him, and left. However, he never wavered. He remained set apart for us loving (choosing) us. He can’t enter into relationship with us, who have chosen someone/something else, without divorcing the position of being set apart for us.
For example: Let’s again look at a young relationship, a couple about to marry. Let’s say the man has chosen his fiancé, set himself apart for her. However, he discovers that she is presently in a relationship with another man. She has abandoned choosing him and has no longer set herself apart for him. How can the husband-to-be follow through with the relationship/marriage when she is no longer choosing him? He cannot. For them to be “in love” again they must mutually choose each other and set themselves apart for the other. Pushing the example further, as in Hosea’s case, what if the man loved her and was committed to her so that he continued to stay true. Despite her unfaithfulness, he could still choose her, set himself apart for her and wait. He is remaining hers and set apart, and she is left with two options. She can continue in her present relationship separated from her fiancé, or turn from her affair and return to her first love. Her fiancé, for him to stay pure for her cannot climb into a relationship with her, he can only remain set apart for her.
Why can’t God enter into relationship with us while we are in our fallen state? Because He loves us, He must stay set apart for us. That is until we abandon our idols and choose Him. It is then that out of His love He purifies, cleanses, and justifies us so that we can be in relationship again.
Then God’s holiness is not merely a characteristic of Himself but an overflowing result of His choosing us (love for us). He can’t climb into our messy relationship with sin (“For I am a jealous God”); the only way that He can continue to love us is to be set apart from us while in our adultery with sin.
