Literally, love is a feeling of strong constant affection for a person ….attraction that includes sexual desire. Strong affection could arise out of personal ties, on sexual desire and perhaps admiration, benevolence or common interest. This four letter word could be a noun as in the name of a person or a verb as a doing word or action; could be used in subjective term that is open to wide interpretations. A great number of people in modern world use this word loosely to mean anything to anybody and often confuse the word love with infatuation. When someone says, “I love you,” you string back because the person may neither understand what he/she is saying nor what those four middle letter words really means. It could also be he/she meant to say, “I like you.” Both are four letter words that may mean different things.
In this popular culture, we refer to love as something one falls into, like an intense attraction to another person – call it “love at first sight” or infatuation. It’s something that makes you feels good when affections are returned in kind and bad when affections are spurned or neglected. Jack Scruggs opines that a natural attraction for a young person to feel for a number of opposite sex. In other words, it will happen whether you want it or not. Love is also described as the most spectacular, indescribable, deep euphoric feeling for someone. It is an unconditional affection with no limits or conditions. When one is in love, he/she will always want to be around each other, can do anything for each other and tell the other anything without fear of disapproval or outright rejection. Everything seems brighter, happier and more wonderful when you’re in love. Blaise Pascal once said, “When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.” When you find such true one don’t let it go. Is this the kind of love expressed when one says, I love you?
There are different types of love: The word love has one meaning in English but in Greek is expressed by four different words:
[i] Erotic love: flesh love; physical love or romantic love that may end up in fornication. You are loved for what you’ve or what you can give. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is hailed as the greatest love story ever told. [ii] Phillo love: [mother/ child] Can a mother forsake her child? A mother’s tender care never ceases towards the child she bears. This kind of love can be brought into marriage but it cannot sustain you. It also includes brotherly love towards someone we really like. [iii] Agape love: The deepest, unconditional and sacrificial love. This is the Jesus type of love. If agape love did not come into your life when you became born again, then you will go back to the world. It is based on doing good things for another person; you give rather than receive. “Love cares more for others than for self.” This love made Jesus give his life and died the death of shame on the cross for us.[Iv] Storgay: The love of one’s relatives. This could mean ‘kind affectionate’ often find in the Church family and supposing cultural associations.
Christian love is not a feeling and it’s a command (an instruction) of the Lord Jesus Christ to us, “I give you a new commandment – love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34). Indeed, the heart of Christian love is Jesus’ commands, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandment. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:2-3). “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Again, “This is love that we walk according to His commandment” (2 John 1:6). The Apostle James added, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well” (James 2:8). “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10). It does not matter how much of the gifts we are operating in, if we have not God’s love inside us, it means nothing. Everything we need must come from a heart of real, genuine love. God’s love compels us to reach out to the lost world. In His love, God can heal, change, renew and transform us. Little wonder St. Augustine said, “There is no greater invitation to love than in loving first.”
The Epistle of John says God is Love. If you are of God you must have love in your heart [1 John 4:7ff]. This is why a lot of believers are not genuinely born again. How do you know one who is born again? Nicodemus went on a fact-finding trip to Jesus by night and ask what he could do to be saved? When we say we are born of God, our inner minds are renewed and the old things are passed away. Verse 7 says He that loves knows God. Verse 10: God loves us and send His son [John 3:16]. Love gives; you cannot claim to love God and do not give to Him. That is microwave love – heat it and when you bring it out, it gets cold. Verse 11 says if God loves us then we should share His love with one another. It is impossible to claim to love God that we do not see yet hate one another that we see.
Verse 17 says: Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment. As Jesus is in heaven, so we are here on earth. Little wonder Apostle Peter said we are chosen generation, a royal priesthood……..peculiar people….. [1 Peter 2:9ff]. Verse 18: There’s no fear in love. If the Church is a community of love in action, there should exist real love among believers? I am terrified by so much in fighting, grudges, bitterness and hate in the Church today. The consequences are: so much division, separation and barriers as well as warring in the body of Christ that those outsiders are no longer attracted to her. It is not surprising to hear people say if this is what the Church is about I don’t wish to belong. We no longer visit one another; we only meet on Sundays in the Church. Are we still brothers and our brother’s keeper? How much do we care anymore what happens to one another since don’t even call on phone to check on one another even when the member is absent from worship or fellowship?
` We should realize that people come to Church because of the way we extend our love to them. Our love must grow inside out. It’s our compassion that attracts them to Christ. This is the message we have heard from the beginning: love one another [1 John 3:11]; not the Cain or Herod kind of love; the love between King David and Jonathan, Jesus and Mary Magdalene; most importantly, Jesus and His church. It’s the Love that counts no wrongs; it covers multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). It says despite your wrongs I still love you. It’s the love that harbors no fears; it’s naked and transparent. It’s the love that shows compassion and is full of mercies. It says I still care about you and will give you another chance; bear you in my heart even when you fail me or fall out of union agreement and behave weird. I shall forgive you because Christ forgives me. This love persuades us to ask what I can do to help you out of the present predicament. What will it take to bring you back to the dance of love? That explains why marriage is a relationship between two good forgivers.
When a brother stumbles or fall we should help to restore him than help the enemy to kill him. Some are glad when a brother or sister stumbles. They castigate, gossip and say funny thing against him/her. ‘Gossip is being carried out by ignorance and receives by fools.’ When the love of God is in the house of God, the people rejoice and prosper. We should let our hearts be circumcised and daily renew our minds. 1 John 3:14ff says we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death [Matthew 12:50]. Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Again, no murderer shall enter God’s kingdom. We need to have the mind of Christ and love unconditionally.
Love means accepting a person as you are. If you do not forgive your fellow human being, you do not love God because God created the person you hate. An open rebuke is better than secret love. As the mind thinks, so is he/she. In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus was asked which of the commandment is the greatest. Jesus answered: love your God with the whole of your being and love your neighbor as you love yourself. When we love, we give. God loved the world that He gave His only begotten son….. (John 3:16). When we do not love God, we do not give God: we do not give offerings or pay tithe to meet the needs in God’s house, to mission, for evangelism and for the needy. Whatever you do to one of these brethren, you do it to Me. “You obey the law of Christ when you bear the burden or offer each other a helping hand” (Gal. 6:2). God measures our love to Him in the way we love and treat one another.
The greatest challenge of Christian life is not loving someone that loves you, but loving an enemy. Jesus left us with some tough and thoughtful instructions: Love your enemies, show kindness to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. Pray for those who insult you (Luke 6:27-28). Be ready to make friends with your opponent (Matthew 5:25). If anyone strikes you on the right check, turn the other to him also (Matt. 5:39). Whenever you stand up to pray, forgive ant offence that you have against anyone; that your Father who is in heaven also may forgive you your offences (Mark 11:25). Little surprised that Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” Former South Africa President, Nelson Mandela once said, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” He also said, “For to be fee is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
Another great mind, Rabbi Rafael opines, “When a man sees that a neighbor hates him, then he must love him more than before to fill up the gap.” Yet another, Rene Voillaume, sums it up this way, “To love as Jesus loves; that is not only the Lord’s precept, it is our vacation. When all is said and done, it is the only thing we have to learn, for it is perfection.” I do not know about you, but I and a great number of those in the dance of love struggle every day with Jesus’ command to love our enemies. Could it be the reason, when in fellowship and a prayer point is raised against an enemy, the house vibrates like an earthquake. We call down fire and destruction on our enemies.
“The doctrine of divine love is considered to be at the heart of God’s relationship with humanity and Christians are called on to display equal love in human relationship.” Apostle Paul advised the Corinthian saints: if you speak in tongues of men and angel but have no love, its noise. If you have gifts of prophesy and understands all the mysteries of knowledge; have faith that move the mountain but have no love its folly and nothing. Love suffers long …not self seeking…….. [1 Corinthians 13:1ff]. The God of love is the God of justice. In the last day, God shall opens the book of the law and if your name is not there, He will open the book of life [the book of love] to see how far you have love in your heart. If God would weigh us by law or count our iniquities, no one would pass His measure or stand before Him. God will therefore weigh us by the measure of our love to Him and brethren. Make sure you are not wanting there. Love one another for love covers all.
Reach: Evangelist/Elder Ogbonnaya, Godswill at: Email: weefreeministries@yahoo.com; Web: weefreeministries.org OR P. O. Box 720035, Houston, Texas, 77272. Phone: 832.881.3929©.
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