i love you because...

Find True Love Now...
What's More Fun Than Love?
Live. Love. Learn.

Perhaps you've seen the following tag-lines for one of the latest online dating services, called True. The success of such services says something about the way we think about love.

We seem to want it really bad.
We seem to hope we "find" it someday.
Also, we seem to be extremely afraid of getting hurt by it.

Thoughts matter. The Bible says, "as a man thinks, so is he." (Proverbs 23:7) Our thoughts determine our actions. So, what is wrong with our thinking about love? It's not just about romantic love, either. May I make a few suggestions that will hopefully apply to all of us?

We are all familiar with how abused the word love is, right? I love ice cream... I love God... I love my brother... etc. It appears that we often think that love is simply what it means to like something so much that your affection for the thing moves outside the realm of 'like' and into the green pasture of 'love.' While this is partially true, I think we're missing one of the most essential aspects of love.

Unconditionality.

As humans, we are just selfish. This is the easiest truth to demonstrate. We love ice cream because it does something for our taste buds, or we might love email, because it makes it easier for US to stay in touch. When we apply this logic to inter-personal relationships, we end up 'loving' people because they do something we like, make us feel a certain way, etc. As long as they maintain this appealing quality, we continue to 'love' them.

Stop thinking like that. (Romans 12:2)

If we continue to love one another like that, we are destined for failure. The minute someone lets us down or doesn't meet our expectations, we withdraw from what we thought was love. Imagine if God loved us like that! We would have NO hope. Perhaps that's what Paul was getting at when in 1 Corinthians 13 he talks about this long-suffering, not self-seeking, patient kind of love. Perhaps that's what Jesus was getting at when he challenged the disciples to love their enemies, for "if you only love those that love you, what reward is there in that?" After all, Christ died for us "while we were yet sinners."

You might be starting to realise just how HARD it is to love people that are... well... HARD to love.

Next week, we'll look at what Galatians 5 has to say about HOW to love like that.

In His Grace,

Dale