Love

Love.

It’s a word we see everywhere. From music to magazines to books to clothing, love has been a central theme for some time now. One of my friends from back east recently exclaimed that it seems like everyone in California has a shirt with the word love on it.

So, what is this word? What makes it so powerful? Why is it so popular?

I believe love is actually a tough term to pin down. Ask any number of people what love is to them and you will get as many different answers as people asked.

I think the main reason for the disconnect and misconceptions people have about what love is stems from our postmodern culture. Ever since the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s, Americans have confused love for sexual cravings and desires of the flesh. We are told that our love is manifest in the ways we engage one another physically and in accepting this, we have confused love for a feeling. But is this truly what love is?

I would argue that there is more to love than this.

Throughout Scripture, we are called to love God as He loves us. The Shema of Deuteronomy chapter six echoes this theme. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deut 6:4-5) This shows us that love is not something that we do purely with our actions, but rather something that we must commit ourselves to wholly. True love, that being which comes directly from God, takes wholehearted devotion. God loves us in this way. The question then becomes, do we love Him the way He loves us?

In a word, no.

It’s not that we don’t want to love God. I genuinely believe that we as Christians do. The problem is that we do not want to give all of ourselves over to Him. This is a trap that we all fall into. It is so easy to say we love God with all we are, but in reality, do we? Like I said, we want to serve God, so why don’t our actions mirror this desire? It’s because we have bought into culture’s understanding of what love is. The type of love that we see displayed in the media and in our own worlds revolves so much around us taking bits and pieces and only giving parts of ourselves away. This is why we cannot fully understand the type of love that God has for us. His love is unconditional, but ours cannot be because in our nature we are conditional beings.

The question then becomes, how do we get closer to God’s understanding of love. How can we learn to love Him more and therefore feel His love more richly? The answer is prayer. Prayer is the most powerful tool a Christian possesses. The mere fact that we can come before an all-powerful, all-knowing God and have a one-on-one conversation with Him truly astounds me. Our prayer life is how we draw nearer to God. As Francis Chan says, prayer is an integral part of loving God. “It is a remarkable cycle,” he says, “Our prayers result in more love which naturally causes us to pray more, which results in more love…” We need to love God with the same love that He has for us. I know this is difficult (near impossible, since He is perfect and we are far from it), but just because something is hard doesn’t mean we should shrug it off, especially when it comes to God and true love. We have to make a conscious choice, each and every day, to try to love God and others more than we ever have. It’s not impossible to live a life sold out in love for God. The trick is to pray and seek God’s love every day.

So, as we continue our journey of living the life God has called us to, remember to live life defined by one word:

Love.