this is real love.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
the history of Valentine’s Day is intriguing; Valentine’s Day is named after St. Valentine, a Catholic saint. he lived under the rule of the emperor Claudius in Rome before Constantine’s reign where Christianity was made legal. St. Valentine was ultimately murdered because he was marrying Christians in secret, as Claudius banned marriage to sway young men to join the army (Who Was St. Valentine?)
with Valentine’s Day coming up, I have been pondering, processing, & praying a lot about culture's definition of love versus God's definition of love. the realizations God has given me aren’t rocket science, but it has helped me evaluate how well I'm loving my neighbor (as Christ calls me to do).
it's interesting getting to watch this play out in real time with social media and the current events that we have 24/7 access to, and that seem never ending recently. in fact, the current cultural events seem to pull us away from God’s love instead of toward God’s love. from watching the news and being on social media recently, I have made a few notes on culture’s love vs. God’s love (as displayed in Scripture) -
culture's definition of love looks a lot like "I'll love you IF..."
“I’ll love you if you agree with me.”
“I’ll love you if you support all of my actions.”
“I’ll love you if you never tell me what to do.”
“I’ll love you if you love me.”
God's definition of love looks like "I'll love EVEN IF/WHEN..."
“I’ll love you even if/when you don’t agree with Me.”
“I’ll love you even if/when you don’t support Me.”
“I’ll love you even if/when you don’t listen to Me.”
“I’ll love you even if/when you don’t love Me.”
culture’s love is conditional, while God’s love is unconditional. Jesus knew when He died on the cross that not everyone would accept His free gift of salvation, yet He sacrificed anyway, even for the people that hated (and hate) him.
the Word of God defines love for us, we don’t define love. lately, it seems like culture has defined love for us. it would be way easier to only love people who love us, and to only love when it’s convenient for us. Jesus reminds us of this in the gospel of Luke,
“If you only love those who love you, why should you get credit for that? even sinners love those who love them! and if you do good only to those who do good for you, why should you get credit? even sinners do that much! and if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return. love your enemies! do good to them. lend to them without expecting to be repaid. then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High…” (6:32-35).
before we go on, it’s important to note there are three terms for love in the greek language, while the english language only has one term for love.
the three types of love in the greek language are:
eros- conditional love; represents romantic love
philia- conditional love; represents brotherly love
agape- unconditional love; represents divine love or charity (godly love)
imagine how much our world would change if Christians showed this unconditional, radical agape love to their neighbors. imagine the people who would see Christ’s love for them who otherwise wouldn’t see or experience His love because they thought they didn’t deserve God’s love, didn’t understand His love for them, or thought they were too far gone for His love. culture claims phrases like “there’s no hate like Christian love.” believers should be the first to display agape love to those around them.
it’s really easy to choose conditional love. what’s harder is choosing unconditional love.
Jesus’ brother, John, reminds us of what God’s love is and what it means for us in 1st John-
“We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. so we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters” (3:16, NLT).
“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us” (4:9-12, NLT).
He goes on to say,
“If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers” (4:20-21, NLT).
we don’t get to pick and choose who we love. believers are called to sacrificial love, and that is often costly. real love doesn’t look like the conditional love the world gives. it looks like the radical display of Jesus on the cross before He took His last breath. it looks like Jesus when He says to His Heavenly Father, “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
we should love the people in front of us more than their ideologies or beliefs.
we should love the people in front of us because God has commanded that of us.
real love doesn’t mean we accept or agree with everything someone does, but that we choose to love them even when we don’t agree with them, even when they disregard us, and even when they hate us. Paul calls us to “speak the truth in love” even when it’s hard (Ephesians 4:15).
if you don’t know Jesus, I pray this Valentine’s Day, you understand the real love of Jesus. John explains it in this way:
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.
This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is” (John 3:16-21, MSG)
