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Love

            The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people as though eating bread; they never call on the Lord. But there they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous. You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge. Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad! (Psalm 14:2-7)

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:21-24)

 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

          Finishing this psalm after being sidetracked by the fools in verse 1. “All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one”… “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The Old Testament and the New, in one accord. They are also in one accord as declared by Jesus in Matthew 22. “All the Law and the Prophets hang on” the commandments to love God and to love our neighbors. Again, the Old and the New concur.

          Some folks claim that we all sin (and we do) and that our sins look different. That seems to be a purely human perspective. One person’s lust (sexual or otherwise) is toward a different kind of object from another’s. But both are failing to love the Lord their God or their neighbor as commanded.

          Of course, definitions are required. What does it mean to love? For some, it means feeling emotional or sexual attraction, or expressing that attraction. Some describe it as desiring or providing happiness. One definition provided for the term we’re translating love is “a sacrificial love that voluntarily suffers inconvenience, discomfort, and even death for the benefit of another without expecting anything in return.”[1]

        But what that quote fails to include is that the kind of love meant is a kind that will voluntarily allow or even cause inconvenience, discomfort, and even death to the beloved for the benefit of the beloved. While Hannah Hurnard believed some unbiblical things, I have always found this quote about love compelling: “Love is beautiful, but it is also terrible – terrible in its determination to allow nothing blemished or unworthy to remain in the beloved.” (Hind’s Feet In High Places, p 179.)

        Love is willing to let the beloved be unhappy, even to deny the beloved happiness, if that is what is in the best interest of the beloved. So the lover will suffer, or the lover will choose to let (or cause) the beloved to suffer, if suffering is what will be best for the beloved.

        Part of the problem is in that definition. As Dallas Willard has pointed out, for many people, the definition of love is “desire.” For them, love is about attraction, possession, use, or consumption.

        As I think about this, I find myself thinking, “Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit – it seems as thought I don’t recognize love given to me. I don’t know how to love You, others, or myself as I ought. Renew my mind. Teach me about love. Teach me to love in the day to day way.”

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