Today we're starting a series we're calling "True Love." Instead of cracking love jokes and getting Lara all upset, I asked Jeremy to crack some jokes and make his wife upset. Jeremy, thanks for taking one for the team! Actually you don't have to worry. Jeremy is a professional. Sandra says "he thinks" he knows what he's doing, so...
This coming Saturday, is Valentine's Day... so we thought we would spend a few weeks digging into this topic of love. Guys, I repeat, this is a special news bulletin, this coming Saturday is Valentine's Day... Some of the questions we want to tackle are:
How do you find perfect love? Does perfect love even exist?
How do you find a respectable husband or find a lovely wife?
How do you find a way forward, when love seems so impossible?
How do you find love, in the aftermath of a failed relationship?
Can Christ's love be enough? Can you find contentment in your circumstances whatever they may be?
I agree with Dallas Willard. "We praise love, look for it, and hope for it. We think of it as a major part of any solution to human problems. We write songs extolling it." We can't imagine living without it. Yet love disappoints us, sometimes it even terrifies us. "When it appears love's not going to work, we back away." (Adapted from Getting Love Right, Dallas Willard)
So, "What is Love?" This question is as old as time itself. In 2014 this was the third most googled question. Is it passion? Emotion? Romance? Kindness? Forgiveness? A Daily Mail article took this question on, and asked around... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2879951/So-love-one-2014-s-popular-web-searches-needs-Google-experts-enchanting-thought-provoking-answers.html
Psychologist Prof Craig Jackson, Birmingham City University, says love is... "an emotional response to a stimulus... love is really just a convenient label we give to a chemical reaction in our brain... [it's] a clever hoax that nature plays on us." Put that in a Hallmark Card! "Hey baby, you stir up my brain chemicals. This love is a total hoax."
Ruth Sutherland, chief executive of Relate, says, "Love is the glue that binds us together -- the currency that makes our relationships work... it can be elusive and difficult to hold on to."
Romantic novelist Barbara Bradford says "[Love is...] caring about the other person more than you care about yourself. I always want to ensure Bob is not only physically well but happy, too, and looks his best. He feels the same. He respects me, cares about me and wants what is best for me. And I know if it came to it, we'd take a bullet for each other."
Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner says, "Love is a willingness to be there for another person. It isn't about fluffy, romantic, hyper-emotional moments -- although those are great. It's about supporting someone in their hour of need. In Judaism, love is about action. Whether loving God or a stranger... what we do practically... shows our love."
Veterinary Noel Fitzpatrick says, "... as humans, we know what unconditional love is, but we're not capable of it. Animals are. Unlike us, they're not governed by their moods, or what happened yesterday. They're not judgmental or vindictive. Unless they've experienced repeated cruelty, they live in the moment, approaching every encounter as a new opportunity to share their love. When our pets greet us, no matter how terrible our day, their delight at seeing us makes us feel better. When our other relationships falter, their affection is guaranteed." Need some love? Get a puppy.
Philosopher Simon May says, "... Love is our new God... we have many faiths, but only one universal religion: the religion of love ... We say it's unconditional, everlasting, selfless and pure, just as God is said to love us. But since only divine love can be unconditional, we are condemned to go on searching for [a love] that reflects the realities of human nature." So... true, unconditional, Divine love doesn't exist. We're condemned to go on searching for the next best thing.
Now the Biblical perspective on love is radically different. We'd never say "Love is God." That's tantamount to idolatry. That's like saying, "Who needs God so long as you have love?" It's like saying, "God can be anyone, anything, or even nothing so long as you have love..."
If Love is a universal Religion, upon what or who is it founded? To say "Love is God" is to divorce love from any meaningful foundation. Divorced from God, love loses its soul, it becomes a bit of anything and everything. And that's exactly what love has become--a little bit of anything and everything and therefore nothing meaningful.
Instead, we'd say, "God is Love." Apart from God, love is nothing, means nothing, matters nothing. No, love is the outflow of "who" God is. True Love reflects the reality, the very essence, of "who" God is. Love isn't purely chemical, doctrinal, practical, behavioral, human, animal... Love is Divine. Love is "being like" God, reflecting his love. But whatever love is, it begins, ends, and finds its meaning in God.
Allow me to share a few insights about TRUE LOVE...
God Offers True Love
Suppose you are thirsty--desperately thirsty. It's so hot, and your mouth is so dry, your body/muscles are aching. You have to find water to survive, and you need to find it soon. So you ask around. One person offers you a piece of bread. Another offers you a vegetables. Another gives you a piece of fruit. The fruit is good, and satisfies a little, but no matter what you eat, it just doesn't quench your thirst. So you widen your search. You begin flipping over rocks, you try eating some juicy bugs. You try eating some mud, but get gravely ill. No matter what you eat, nothing satisfies. With each passing day you get a little more desperate, little more reckless, little more inconsolable.
But then one day someone shows you a deep well, with an endless supply of fresh water. Instantly, your thirst is quenched. This is what you've been longing for all along! And not only is there enough to quench your thirst, but there's enough to quench the thirst of everyone you know!
That deep well, that endless supply of fresh water, is like the love of God. It's just that most people have never found their wellspring! If I might hijack a Biblical story... People are like the Woman at the Well in John 4. Here was a woman who tried to find love from a lot of people, in a lot of places, in a lot of different ways. We'll never know what relief she found through the parade of men who came in/out of her life.
But what Jesus offered her was something infinitely deeper, more sustaining. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Only God himself can quench the deepest longings of the soul. Like the Woman at the Well, you're never going to be completely satisfied until you drink as deeply as possible from God's everlasting supply. The Woman at the Well found such an abundant supply of Living Water she raced back to offer everyone in village a drink too.
God is love. So necessarily, our search for love ought to start with God--and more specifically, God's love in Christ Jesus. When the Apostle Paul wrote the Ephesian church he said, "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name... I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God..." (Ephesians 3:14-19). That's what it look like to take a deep drink!
When was the last time you were filled full with the love of God? Decades later, problems arose within the Church at Ephesus. The Apostle John's prescription was the same as the Apostle Paul... repent, do what you did at first, don't forsake your first love. If you're empty, if you're love is growing cold, go back to the source, and drink deeply. If you've never known love, it's just the same. Return to God, and discover how wide, long, high, deep is the love of God in Christ. Don't condemn yourself to searching endlessly for the love God so readily offers. Go to the source.
God Supplies True Love
An amazing thing happens when we connect to God as our wellspring. Suddenly, God's love becomes like a spring of water, welling up within us. We find ourselves connected to an endless, inexhaustible, supply of love.
So imagine for a moment that you're the Woman at the Well. You've discovered this wellspring of love in Christ Jesus. You begin to realize that the bucket you brought to be filled is overflowing with the love of God. Water is spilling over the rim. So you go and get more buckets, and more. Soon, those buckets are overflowing too. It's just as Jesus said. Your life cannot contain the love of God. It just keeps bubbling up, and spilling out all over the place. I'll tell you, so long as you remain vitally connect to Christ, that's exactly what will happen.
So you improvise. Instead of carrying buckets back and forth, you rig up a hose, so you can deliver an endless supply of living water to everyone in your village. This is a picture of how God designed love to work. He is the source. His love fills us to overflowing... but then out of the overflow, he intends his love to spill into everyone/everything else. Continuously, unobstructed.
But there is a funny thing that happens. Instead of being a conduit, a hose, through whom God's love flows out into the world, we become more like a spigot, or even the nozzle at the end of the hose. We assume the role of regulating the flow of God's love. Not too much, not too little.
We're never more frustrated, and other people are never more frustrated, then when we assume the role of the nozzle/spigot instead on the hose. When you're the spigot you're constantly judging people. Do they deserve love? Will they be grateful? Will they reciprocate? Will they change? Should I show this person love, or that person? Should I extend grace now, or hold back?
When it comes to love, God didn't call us to be the spigot or nozzle. He didn't ask us to play God, and choose and pick and control things. He asked us to be faithful in letting his love flow through us into the lives of others.
You'll never be more blessed then when you are the conduit of God's love, continuously receiving but then releasing/showering God's love on others. God's love should flow through us unhindered, generously, and abundantly. The Woman at the Well went back to her village and told everyone, indiscriminately, how much the Lord had done for her. Her whole village was blessed.
One of my favorite passages is Colossians 3:3-4 which describes how we die and Christ literally becomes our life. Instead of us living our life, we let Christ live his life through us. Realizing how dearly loved we are, as God's children, we allow his love to flow through us. His compassion, His kindness, His humility, His gentleness, and His patience all flowing through us. We bear with other people, and forgive whatever grievances we have, just as the Lord forgave us (Colossians 3:12-14). When it comes to love, we connect to the source, but then we're to "let it flow, let it flow!"
Just think of how important it is when you water your yard or garden. Without that water, think of all the seeds that would lay dormant. It's just like that with the love of God. Without God's love flowing freely through us, imagine what potential life in Christ never gets activated around us. Let it flow, let it flow.
God Redeems True Love
I think we'd all agree that we struggle with love on several fronts. First, we're not as vitally connected to God's love as we should. Second, God's love doesn't always flow through us, unobstructed. There are dynamics in our lives that hinder God's love.
In Jesus' day, people focused on changing outward behavior. So they were heavy on the law, heavy on commandments, heavy on moralistic teaching. Do this. Do that. Don't taste. Don't touch. I think we do the same thing today. We imagine that love is simply a set a behaviors and choices. If only we could control people's behavior the world would be a better place. The problem is that the more we try to control people, the more evil they become.
The problem with LOVE isn't people's behavior--it's not what's on the outside it's what's on the inside. Jesus' analysis was that love produces morality whereas morality can never produce love. Morality necessarily flows out of love. If things are right on the inside, they'll be right on the outside. Morality is what we can expect from someone not only filled with the love of God, but someone who allows that love to flow freely from God to others.
When Jesus discussed morality, he insisted that we look hard at the "inside of the cup." A person might look great on the outside. But on the inside, their heart might be filled with greed and self-indulgence. How do we do such tough, Inner Work?
For example, Colossians 3:5-9, instructs us to "put to death" whatever belongs to our earthly nature. But how are we to do this? The answer is actually quite simple. First, Colossians 3:1-4 commands us to set our heart on things above... and to set our minds on things above. But then second, Colossians 3:10 reminds us to "to put on the new self" which is "being renewed in the knowledge in the image of its Creator."
This is a really fancy way of saying, change your focus! In Ephesians Paul says, "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God..." (Ephesians 3:14-19)
Our problem isn't that we don't know right and wrong. Our problem is that we don't know God. If we could wrap our heart/mind around the love of God, we'd be able to put anything about sinful nature to death, and see our love fully redeemed.
1 John 4:7-12, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."