Wednesdays with Grace

Defining Love

If there is a word without definition in our culture, or any other culture for that matter, it is the word “love.” Some define it as a warm, fuzzy feeling, others as doing kind things for other people, some view it as touch, or sex, or a host of other things.

When working with married couples who are having difficulties, I frequently have heard the words, “I just don’t love him anymore,” or “I haven’t loved her in years.” With no intention of sounding calloused, if the couple saying these words claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, my unspoken response often is that it is more of an indictment than an inducement to pity.

Human sin can be summarized well in one word: self-centeredness. As imperfect people living in a fallen world with other imperfect people, we are often obsessed with groping for perfect love in places we never will find it until we find Jesus Christ. Upon coming to Christ and comprehending His great love for us manifested in His sacrificial and atoning death on the cross, we come to realize we are loved completely and perfectly. One by-product of being loved perfectly over time is that the Holy Spirit of God enables us to become increasingly other-centered. As 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.”

I Corinthians 13: 4-8a defines love in this way: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 

As impossible as acting on such a list is for us as people in our natural state, these are attitudes, behaviors, and character qualities that are to be increasingly present in the follower of Jesus Christ. Once we are in Christ, we discover that in Him, love is first and foremost an act of the will in obedience rather than a set of warm feelings. As a believer in Christ, the next time I “feel like” I don’t love someone, maybe the first questions I need to ask myself are, “Why not?” and “With God’s power, why not start now?”

In Christ,  

Chris Heinss