The Nature of Love

    It’s the incredibly over-commercialized month of love! (Before I lose you, this is not another redundant rant against Valentine’s Day. Whether the holiday is, or isn’t your cup of tea is not the point of this message.)

   So anyway, being February, it seemed like a great time to write about love. The following is what I perceive to be The Nature of Love. Primarily, perfect love.

Because nothing says love like a Klopp hug...

   “If there’s a line, surely I’ve crossed it by now. I believe in the grace of God, and in the sovereignty of his payment for me. Even so, I wrestle with the lies of the enemy.”

   I assume if you are a redeemed child of God, you’ve heard these lies whispered in your ears as well.

“You’ve crossed the line.”

“You’re too far gone.”

“You’ve managed to throw away perfect love, to run willingly into sin.”

   Wow. That last one hits hard, because there is a half-truth hidden in the lie. I have run to sin before, willingly. Our enemy is a master deceiver, and we know that the most powerful lies are the ones that have a bit of truth tied in with the trap. So do you see where the lie is in that statement? It is the lie that perfect love could ever be thrown away. Perfect love is given selflessly and unconditionally; it is impossible to destroy. 

   Matthew 18:12

   Even when suffering comes externally, not from our own sin, but simply the pain of living in a broken world, the enemy tells us that we are ultimately alone. Perfect love steps in again, and God tells us that he will never leave or forsake us; Deuteronomy 31:6, and that he is our comfort and protector; Psalm 46:1-3.

   A major contributor in my inspiration to write this piece came from the last service at my church. Because I was able to witness and take part in a display of perfect love. Yes, of course we read through 1 Corinthians 13, but we were not at a wedding.

   One of the women in our small, close-knit congregation recently had to admit her husband to a live-in care center. He has battled for twenty years with one of the most brutal cases of Alzheimer’s that I have ever seen. An event in his sickness left him in the hospital last weekend, and his care center refusing to reclaim him.

   Another young family in our church lost their husband/father to suicide shortly before Christmas; a tragedy that has greatly distressed our church.

   And there is always more. Everyone in my congregation has suffering, because we all currently live in this finite, and broken world.

   Here’s an important perspective of the people around us, that can help with loving or understanding others when it is difficult: It is safe to assume that every person you have ever met, or will ever meet, has experienced great pain and brokenness in their life. This is a life changing revelation that I experienced a few weeks ago. I am fully convinced of its truth. Everyone has loss, or tragedy, or heartbreak. Everyone has experienced disappointment, humiliation, and often some level of emotional or physical assault.

   Especially for a 26-year-old, I have experienced a great deal of loss and heartbreak. I’ve been in the unhappy end of the hospital too many times, and have consequentially been to too many funerals. This being said, it is blinding, calloused, and entirely unhelpful for me to assume that others have not experienced equal, or far worse pain.

   Secondly, there is also the pain that comes from sin. Our own wrong choices that we make, believing that we are working for our good, only adding to our own brokenness.

   And so the enemy keeps lying, telling me that I am too wounded to go on, too wicked to be pursued by purity, too broken to ever be made whole.

   When the light of the truth tears through the veil of the lies, I’m actually thankful for the weight of the lies, because in comparison it shows a hint of how outmatched our enemy is. The entire power of the enemy is unimaginably small compared to the merest power of our Father. The love of the Father is sovereign and invincible.

   “If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

   Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

   -1 Corinthians 13:1-7                                                                                         

   This verse is most often used in weddings. I’m not complaining. Husbands and wives should absolutely remember to love each other with this perfect love. However, it is also the standards by which God conducts his love. Through all pain and brokenness, God’s love endures. It not only endures, it thrives. It grows ever on, constantly expanding our capacity to be loved, and over-filling that capacity.

   All the loss, all the pain, all the brokenness. They are what makes God’s love beautiful. Because it is easy to love when loving is easy, and it is hard to love when loving is hard.

   I was given such a powerful example of this kind of perfect love last Sunday. My church, as a whole, prayed and praised and mourned together for these two wounded families. The tangible feeling of unity shared by everyone present was undeniable.

   Love begets love, and so it is the love God pours into us that we can offer to others. Give love to others freely, as you are given to freely, and when you try to comprehend God’s love for you, re-read 1 Corinthians 13, with the understanding that this is how completely you are pursued by God.

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.
And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don't have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way he loves us.

Sections of “How He Loves” by The David Crowder Band