Biblical love is a choice. It is a commitment. It is an action often done in opposition to feelings. Love is not just a feeling.
9 min. read / Click below to listen to me read this post.
“Jesus replied, ‘The most important commandment is this: “Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” The second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” No other commandment is greater than these.'”
Mark 12:29-31 (NLT)
Jesus told us to love. What does that really mean?
Jesus commanded us to love God & people.
We want to be loved.
We like to feel love.
We really like to say we love things.
But what exactly are we talking about?
If we are going to love, we need to know what love means.
Let’s look at some definitions of “love.”
Don’t leave yet! I looked them up for you. 😉
Helpful/Unhelpful Definitions
Here are the definitions we usually associate with the word “love,” direct from a dictionary… a print dictionary. (I actually turned pages of paper to find these. I may or may not have gotten a paper cut.)
Love (noun): "a deep tender feeling of affection… a feeling of intense desire and attraction… an intense emotional attachment… an expression of one's affection… enthusiasm… charity" (The American Heritage College Dictionary, 4th edition, 2002). *charity [help or relief for the poor and needy; generosity; not being overly judgmental; theological virtue defined as love in Christianity]
Love (verb): "to feel deep, tender affection… to feel intense desire and attraction toward… to be emotionally attached to… to like or desire enthusiastically… to have charity for… to thrive on; need… to experience deep affection or intense desire for another" (TAHCD).
[Click the following to find definitions of “love” from newfangled web dictionaries: lexico.com; merriam-webster.com; dictionary.com]
Let’s stop here and get real. If this is all love is, “deep tender feelings” or “intense emotional attachment,” is it even possible to love God and everyone and ourselves even a little of the time???
Think about it. How often do you feel deep, tender affection toward someone — anyone — that you would say you love?
Let me quiz myself on this…
Do I love my parents? Well, I do not always feel “deep, tender affection” toward them, so, if love is merely a feeling, the true answer would be “no” most of the time.
Do I love my brother and sister? I do not feel an “intense emotional attachment” to them even this moment (sorry, sibs!), so according to this definition, “no”, I do not love them right now.
Do I love my husband (to whom I’ve been married almost 20 years), with “deep, tender affection,” “intense desire and attraction,” and enthusiastic desire this moment? Most of the last 20 years?? The two years we were dating and engaged??? Answer: NO. I have felt these ways about my husband in spurts, but I have not felt these things that define our English word “love” most of the time.
How do YOU feel about… your parents? Friends? Siblings? Youth leader? Pastor? Sunday school teacher or small group leader? Neighbors, as in, the person or people who live near you and are around you most days? Your teammates? How about your classmates?
We’re not talkin’ ’bout no crushes!
Okay, some of you have or have had a boyfriend or girlfriend or a crush. You may think: “I may not have loved all these other people you’ve listed like this, Mrs. Alicia, but I love them like this, and all the time, too!” Hmm. Well, give it time. I hate to burst your bubble, but there will come a day, all too soon for you, that this person toward whom you feel all this deep, intense, exciting emotion will let you down, and all of the sudden, those feelings will fade… or die… and can often turn to an intense dislike, or even hatred in extreme cases.
If you haven’t experienced this yourself, just look around — I bet you’ve seen it. Sometimes these negative feelings will end the crush or relationship for good; sometimes, they will just be part of your continued relationship with a human being who is imperfect like you (and all other humans!). If love is primarily a feeling, then we aren’t loving much of the time.
What about loving God?
And what about God, the One we’re supposed to love first, with all of our being? When or how often do you feel “deep, tender affection” toward Him? How about “intense desire and attraction” for Him? “Emotional attachment” to Him? When do you like God “enthusiastically”? Do you ever feel you “thrive on” Him and really “need” Him, as in, “I just can’t live without Him!”
I’m going to guess you have felt these things, or some of these things, about God, if you call yourself a Christian. Most of us have intense feelings when we pray to give our lives to Christ, and just before, and just after, and at youth camp or Vacation Bible School or on mission trips, and often during the singing of our favorite worship songs, if we have any.
But we don’t feel this way every day of youth camp.
We don’t feel this way during every worship song, or every worship service.
We probably don’t feel this way when we wake up on any Monday morning, or during Math or English class, or especially any class right after lunch, or at work, or at any kind of practice, or when stuff is just not going “right” in our lives.
We may even read the Bible and not feel much of anything.
We may pray and not feel much of anything.
We may participate in a service project or volunteer at church and not feel anything much but tired.
And it is at this point we can realize that our definition of “love” may be off.
Let’s read Mark 12:29-31 again.
It’s not a commandment to feel, but to obey.
“Jesus replied, ‘The most important commandment is this: “Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” The second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” No other commandment is greater than these.'”
Mark 12:29-31 (NLT)
Is Jesus really saying that we must feel deep, tender affection, intense desire and attraction, and enthusiastic emotional attachment to God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength in order to love Him? And if we’re not feeling those things, that it means we don’t love Him?
If we stick with our faulty definitions of love, then the above is what we must logically conclude.
However, biblical love is defined differently.
Biblical love is less about feeling and more about choice, commitment, and actions often taken in opposition to feelings.
In the next post, we’ll go to what is known as “The Love Chapter” (I Cor. 13) in the Bible and see what kind of love it describes.
Let’s pray.
PRAYER
Father God,
Help me gain a better understanding of how You want me to love You & others.
I want to obey Jesus. Grow me into someone who loves You & others like Jesus loves.
Thank You for first loving me! Thank You for blessing me!
“Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long” (Psalm 25:5).
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
To read another post about biblical love, check out Day 43 of my Colossians Bible Study.
