My last column
generated words warm and loud enough to melt some of the snow that we have received over
the last couple of weeks. The caller took exception to my remark that love is behavioural
and not emotional. In context my comment was correct though it would have been better
expressed "love is PRIMARILY behavioural rather than emotional."
The caller was correct in that love is not without emotional qualities.
However, the verbal abuse I tolerated manifested the caller’s ignorance of love. As
Christians we are to speak all things IN LOVE. That doesn’t mean that we have to
speak in sweet, syrupy tones or words. Sometimes a sharp rebuke is in order but even that
can be ministered in love if you understand what love is. The caller wasn’t offering
a rebuke, he was offering insults which probably satisfied him.
The dictionary defines love as "That disposition or state of
FEELING with regard to a person which (arising from recognition of attractive qualities,
from instincts of natural relationship, or from sympathy) MANIFESTS itself in solicitude
for the welfare of the object, and usually also in delight in his presence and desire for
his approval; warm affection, attachment."
If our feelings of love are not manifest in the welfare of the object
loved then it is not true love. You may be experiencing "warm fuzzies", but it
is not love no matter how oft you repeat "I love you."
When I discipline my children I certainly don’t experience the
same feelings I did when I first met my wife, such as light headedness, lightfootedness,
sweaty palms, speechlessness, exhilaration, etc. I still love her, and more even though
the FEELINGS have changed. And I have learned over the years that what she has said to me
(as many other wives have no doubt said) is true to the definition of the word. I fear
I’m going to loose a lot of the men who may have even found themselves liking my
column but it has to be said. When your wife says, "SHOW me that you LOVE me"
she is appealing to the very definition of the word LOVE.
Our society readily manifests that they have forgotten what the word
love means. I referred to one evidence in my last column which spoke of the discipline of
children. Undisciplined children are unloved children. The divorce rate is another
manifestation, and is climbing ever higher. Ask a man why he left his wife and you’ll
hear the usual.
ž"I don’t have the same FEELINGS for her." As if those initial
feelings of infatuation or romantic glow were to last a lifetime. Face it, married people
don’t always FEEL like being married. It is when we don’t FEEL like being
married that LOVE has to kick in |
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"There’s someone else who makes me FEEL like you did when we
first met." Well of course she does, but this too won’t last. This isn’t
LOVE, it’s selfishness. He’s neither concerned for the welfare of his wife or
for the welfare of his hussy. He is only concerned with the pleasures that he will receive
which is the opposite of love — "Charity (LOVE) seeketh not her own (1 Cor
13.4-5)."
Our young people are being taught that two mature individuals who
express love for one another are not to be denied a sexual relationship, yet they are not
taught what LOVE is. Young girls should be taught that young boys who make sexual advances
on them are not doing so in the name of LOVE. Is he manifesting any concern for her
welfare in so doing? NO! He is manifesting selfishness. If her welfare was being
considered he would marry the girl first, committing to a vow which says he will take care
of her (welfare) til death do them part.
The Bible demonstrates that true LOVE is an action (behaviour), not
only a feeling (emotion). Years ago when Jimmy Swaggart sought to bring the greatest
reproach against the cause of Christ with his sinful behaviour he displayed enormous
EMOTIONS for Christ in his supposed repentance. He cried, he swooned, he put on a SHOW
which convinced thousands but his BEHAVIOUR before and after his sex scandal proved that
he did not love the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, like our wives, "If ye LOVE me,
keep my commandments (Jn 14.15)." In other words, "If ye love me, PROVE
it."
Believers who are being taught that doctrine doesn’t matter so
long as you LOVE Jesus are being lied to by preachers who don't know what love is.
Ignorance is so far from being the mother of devotion, an act of love, is the murderer of
it!
God manifested His concern for our welfare, which by definition is
love, by sending His Son to take away that which separated us from God — SIN:
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be
the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4.10)." Christ satisfied God’s holy and
righteous character that would not allow for sin to go unpunished. Christ took to Himself
the sins of His elect — He that knew no sin became sin for us. Having thus done all
those for whom He died are saved inasmuch as all their sins were paid for by Jesus Christ.
I stand in awe and wonder before the LOVE of God because my Bible tells me that "God
commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet SINNERS, Christ died for us (Rom
5.8)." The religious world tries to take the shine of God’s love by teaching
that He only died for the righteous, believers, law keepers, etc. Let the self righteous
condemn me for my doctrine, I know that NOTHING can separate me from the love of God (Rom
8.35-39)! |
