A Bible study leader of a group I
was in as a teenager once asked the group to define love. We all took a stab at
it, but I don’t think any of us could get a real handle on a definition that
was complete in any way. Just about every resource you look to for a definition
of love describes it as a feeling of some kind… usually intense in nature.
Feelings are certainly relevant in any understanding of love, but a big
question is “But where does the feeling come from?” What is love’s genesis in
us? Why and how does it start? Why did I come to love Joanne instead of any
number of other potential women in my college? Isn’t love much more than just
feelings of attraction or infatuation?
We can never truly and fully
understand love if we leave God out of the picture or the conversation
attempting to define it. An article in The Wall Street Journal (2/14/13)
tried to explain that real love doesn't come from God; instead, love is just a
bunch of chemical reactions in your brain. According to the article “How
Neuroscience Can Help Us Find True Love”, Leil Lowndes says:
“Valentine's
Day is here so get ready to send and receive heart-shaped chocolates and cards
decorated with big red hearts. But wait a minute! Not so fast. Neuroscience has
discovered that the heart has very little to do with romance. For accuracy you
should send your main squeeze a Valentine's Day card with the image of a
squishy gray blob evocative of a rotting cauliflower—the brain—because that's
where romance really resides. And instead of saying "I love you," the
knowledgeable lover would say, "Darling, dopamine floods my caudate
nucleus" every time I look at you. Love and attraction are all tangled in
the convoluted wiring of the brain.
So what
is love? Neuroscience tells us that love is a condition involving neurons,
neurotransmitters, hormones, receptors, and circuits in your brain. Cognitive
science defines passionate love as an "elevated activity in the brain
pathways which cause feelings of euphoria, strong motivation, and heightened
energy which can induce sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and obsessive thinking
about the beloved.”
Can the human mind describe and
explain what love is and how it works? Not in human terms alone. Not if love is
from God. It is impossible for a human being to fully experience/comprehend
love apart from God. I think that love is part of what it means to be in the
image of God. The Scriptures tell us that love comes from God. Love has its
genesis in the Lord. Therefore our experience of love is a result of God’s
grace to us. God, who is
love takes that which is a part of His very nature and shares it with us and
graces us with the ability to love. What a mystery this is!
I don’t know of anything that has
ever topped the Holy Spirit’s words through Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 when it
comes to describing love: “ 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it
is not proud. 5 It is
not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record
of wrongs. 6 Love does
not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.” What a delight to be the object of love. But
what an even greater delight to be able to give such a thing to another person! Love is learned. We learn it from
God and from our families and from others. Take God out of the picture and take
love out of a family and you have a recipe for loveless people, living only for
themselves, incapable of thinking or caring for others: incapable of love. You
and I have the capacity - and the calling from God – to teach (by word and by
demonstration) how to love. And that is something that is “caught”, not
intellectualized or scientificated (I know that’s not a word, but I like it.)
May the Lord raise up a love in us that reflects His own, and may we have true
joy in it.
1 John 4:7-11 (NIV) 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for
love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and
only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This
is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an
atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since
God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Ephesians 3:17-19
(NIV) 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may
have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high
and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this
love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the
fullness of God.
2 Thessalonians
3:5 (NLT) May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and
expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ.
Matthew 22:37-40
(NLT) 37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love
the LORD your God with all your
heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ 40 The entire
law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
PRAYER: Father, though I may not fully understand the
length and breadth and height and depth of your love, I have experienced your
love throughout my entire life, and it was never more fully expressed than when
Jesus died for me. The deeper I go to search out your love, the deeper I go
into its wonders. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”
Jesus
Christ is Lord!
Scott
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