Love Et Cetera.

Through my current situation and changes in my life I have been contemplating the difficult concept of love. Moreover while there are 18 inches between the head and the heart this idea has captivated both. Through it all I remain convinced that true love is eternal and unconditional. Love is a commitment not merely an emotion. Some commitments are forced. We often love our family not because of a physiological imbalance of chemicals in our brains, but because they are the ones who we must deal with, we must talk to. We develop a desire to love these people for their own sake and not what they can do for us over time. When a father loves his son it is not out a need of the father for the son, however when the son is young he needs his father. It is only later in life that children begin to love their parents not for what mommy and daddy can do for them but because of who they are. Don’t get me wrong it is not that the children are not still grateful for all their parents have given them and will continue to give, but they do move past this contractual form of love to something greater.

There are really only two types of love, though each has certain subcategories. The first type is that contractual form of love. I dare say this is not love at all, it is more of a business arrangement. The two people involved in the relationship get something from one another and thus only love each other in so far as their end of the deal has been met. You could perhaps fit all human relationships into this category though many will strive to be free of it.

When it comes to the relationships between two members of the opposite sex the most basic form of contractual love is chemistry as love. Chemistry is not love. Chemistry will come an go throughout any relationship. However when chemistry is strong and confused with love the relationship becomes very, very contractual. It is as if each partner is saying to the other, “I will continue to love you so long as I have these urges.” People who can move from one relationship to another very quickly often view simple chemistry as love. This is the lowest form of love and does not even deserve the title. It is lust. While no one can deny in a truly loving relationship there will be chemistry to define the entire relationship by it is to doom it from the start. Also it is not clear to the one who holds this view that this is the view he or she holds, we often flatter ourselves into thinking we are far nobler or loving than we actually are.

The next pitfall people face when entering a contractually loving relationship is that they are forced into love or feel like they should fall in love. They want to fall in love. To quote Anberlin “you’re in love with love.” This understanding of love is the idealist view of love. I love the idea of being in love you with you as the cliche goes. This version of love again is simply a modified view of lust. It breaks down to chemistry. Love should feel like this or that. The idea of the person in the mind of one who holds this view regarding love is often that the other is a princess in a castle or a white knight ready to rescue her. It is more difficult to break off this form of love because while the idea and reality clash, the one who holds this view, will see the ideal as the reality. They will fight with their entire being to hold on to the ideal which was never there in the first place, or they will throw the relationship away because their partner cannot live up to the ideal. This form generally starts when a partner chooses the things about the other they like and views them as the entirety of the partner.

The next view of love is what i would call the truest form of human love. This form loves the other person for who they are. This love is as unconditional as a human can get. They love the other for their sake. The best example we have of this type of love is Christ and his Church. Christ’s particular redemption of sinners shows us the great depths of this love. This love is self sacrificing and always seeking to bring the beloved into a closer relationship with the lover. This is the love that according to Paul never fails. This tricky statement does not mean that the lover will always succeed in bringing the beloved into a closer relationship with them. We are not God and do not know perfectly what will bring specific people into a closer relationship with them. However that is the aim. That the person loved is brought into a closer relationship with the person loving, and also with God. Some might argue that this too is a contractual form of love. I must disagree. This form of love, while seeking the betterment of the relationship is not contingent upon it. The only contingency is the well being of the beloved. I should note that the well being foremost involves their relationship with God through Christ. Yet even if the other rejects both you and Christ, the love for them does not cease. This love is a commitment not a contract. This love says, “even if you wrong me, even if you leave me, even if you kill me I will love you and do what is best for you. While it is my hope that you will grow more and more Godly each day, that our relationship will grow and change into something far more and far better than we can imagine, even if it does not, I will love you.” Someone once equated being in love to walking into a candy store, “you walk in when there’s candy (chemistry, the ideal, etc.) and even when there’s no candy (chemistry, the ideal, etc.) you still stay until the candy (chemistry, the ideal, etc.) is back.” I would simply add that being in love means you stay in the candy store even if it shuts down. Anything else would simply be a business arrangement, a cold contract.

*Disclaimer* I do realize that there are certain situations where a relationship needs to end or be placed on hold. Home violence being chief among them. I am not advising people in such situations to simply stick it out for the sake of love. No indeed i would advise them to get out of that situation but not stop loving the abuser and hoping they would repent and turn to Christ.

Let me know what you think.

Romans 1:24-25

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
- Romans 1:24-25

If you long to see your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, or anyone else naked rather than see them grow in holiness these verses are describing you. P.S. you don't love them you lust them, repent.

Just a quickie!

Love

I have often said that I believe in love yet have never made any attempt to explain what exactly that means. Therefore I will attempt to pen a few lines about the nature of love. I, like Clive Staples Lewis, believe that there are many forms of love, each more complete than the next. To escape writing a novel on the subject I will stick to that which used to be known as charity.

Unfortunately this, as is the case with many words, has lost its meaning through removing the factual nature from the word and making it a general term, destroying the original meaning. This happened with many words in the English language including but not limited to Christian, gentleman, lady, sir, and madam. These titles all used to mean something more than a good person or a person of respect. They were titles give to people based upon facts about that person.

Likewise charity has been granted the same ill fate of those abused words. It used to mean the love that only God could give, unconditional love, yet in modern times it has been watered down to the notion of giving to the less fortunate.

This is no the love that I speak of, I speak of the irresistible love of God, which is most closely represented in the love shown between two lovers. Now this love of God is irresistible not because we cannot resist, because there are many indications through out the world that we can. Rather this love of God is powerful enough to overcome any resistances if He that gives it so chooses. (Colossians 1:16)

Now I have said this love is expressed so far as depraved humans can show it through the holy institution of marriage, the love of lovers if you will. This is because that love is as close to unconditional love as we humans ever get with one another. One does not choose whom he or she falls in love with. It is not the same as when you choose your friends and are obligated to love your children and parents. This love is clearly different.

Unfortunately being a fallen race we have corrupted love so often into a shadow of its former self, lust. Lust should not and cannot bare the name of love as it would lead the beloved into sin. Rather love, in its true form, because of its very nature, longs for and seeks wholeness for the beloved. The ultimate form of which is holiness. This love of which I speak will greave when fault is found in the beloved, and seek to remove the blot of sin always. The beauty of perfect love is that it seeks the perfection of the beloved.

Charity always encompasses friendship and affection, which are by nature are lesser forms of love, but charity makes its affection known, boasts in its friendship, and claims to have more because of the beloved. Yet we so often see this form of love twisted into a need love rather than its true form, a gift. Those whom are lovers give themselves completely to one another, holding nothing back. While this love will forgive all the imperfections of the beloved it will never cease to wish the removal of such infirmities. This is because as I have previously stated true love, true charity, seeks holiness for the beloved.

Many would argue that to seek to change the beloved from unholy to holy would be to recant what it was that the lover first saw in the beloved. I firmly reject this notion. Allow me to allegory for a moment. If a lover loves his beloved yet his beloved is a whoring drug addict, is it wrong for the lover to wish to remove such traits of ungodliness from the beloved? Would his love be doubted because he wished her a better life, a life away from the drugs and sexual immorality? It is not, rather if he did not wish to remove such vices it would be said that he did not truly love her. Yet he loves her in spite of these vile things she does, and knows that if she continues it will eventually kill her. Yet even if they do destroy her it cannot be said that the lover did not love the beloved. It would not be fair to say her death was his fault, because though he often told her those things were wrong and provided a free way out she did not accept it.

Now if it were truly unfair for a lover to will change in their beloved in an effort toward holiness that is indeed a shame, as God loves none of us according to that statement. God hates unrighteousness, therefore to say that He does not long for holiness out of you is to say that He wishes to hate you, for you are unrighteous and as such will remain unrighteous. It is indeed the greater lover who seeks to correct the failures of their beloved. The one who continues to allow the beloved to continue in sin, in self-destruction unquestioned, without wishing or hoping for something better does not truly love at all; rather this is a clear expression of lust.

The problem with this is that very few of us know how totally and utterly sinful and depraved we truly are. This is because we see all sorts of evil about in the world and we assume that we are actually worthwhile and good. Yet the bible states that none are righteous, not even one (Psalm 14:1; 53:1-3; Romans 3:10). Worse off it calls all of our righteous actions filthy rags before a Holy God (Isaiah 64:6).

If what the prophet Isaiah said is truth then to try to add imperfection, filth, to perfection, purity, is to make it imperfect and filthy. It would be like adding a drop of cyanide to a gallon of milk. It ruins it, and drinking the contaminated milk will kill you. It is as if you were trying to wash a car with muddy water.

You see it is not I, nor any man that states not all will be saved, who limits the love of Christ but rather he whom says, “all will be saved, just to different degrees of glory,” or he that says “one is saved by grace and works.” Who among you would require an exchange of works for your love? To suggest one can be paid for their love is frankly insulting. Which bridegroom among you would say to his bride whose life is being threatened “I will only love you enough to save you if you first work to earn my love?” None among you would be so cruel. Yet you being evil do not hold requirements for your love, how much more will the God that is love accept those who love him unconditionally?

You see my beloved friends to try to earn the love of God is like trying to earn the love of your husband or wife. If it is earned then it is no longer a gift, and if no longer a gift then it is no longer love, for love is freely given, not earned. To put a condition upon the love of Christ other than to simply accept it is to remove all the elements that make it love.

Now this does not say that the beloved will not do good works to show their love for the lover. Yet these are done out of love, not because they will earn the love of the lover but rather because of the manifestation of love for the lover. In the same way the true Christian will be saved unto good works (Ephesians 2:10). Not because they think that the works in anyway can earn their salvation but rather because of the abundance of love for Christ that they partake in.

This is the nature of true love, the nature of charity, that the groom, Christ, simply want a relationship with you, the bride, as part of the church, unconditional, yet love filled. To require work for love is to not have love at all. Yet the relationship is two ways. The evidence of God’s love is that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) The evidence of our love for God is our works, in so much that they are to advance His kingdom and are not to bring glory to ourselves but rather to God. This is true love, true charity.

My dear brothers and sisters in Adam I say this that you might understand and know what true love, love that can only come from the Father of lights, is. I am left with a hope that each of you will enter into a loving relationship with the creator of all things and experience the love of which I have spoken. It is like nothing of this world because it is not of this world.

Beloved, guard your hearts from the idols of self-righteousness and self-worth. Understand the power of love in so much that it is unconditional. May the peace that only comes from God through Faith in God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ be on you. Grace be with all those who have an undying, unconditional, and true love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace and Peace.