The Christian is commanded in Scripture to love. Some love concepts are so often repeated that they may have in repetition softened the profound meaning of the injunction for the masses. We are to absorb a nature of love. It is a commandment, not to be determined by the agreement of emotions, or ideal conditions, or absence of conflict. It is to be a prevailing orientation of the self-conscious individual, but it even spills over into the animal world where it is often seen and is so compelling that it can make the news reports. When we see, in animals, signs of factors found in human beings, we are impressed and may even use a factor to relate the matter to an evolutionary development. It is more likely that God, in his creative gesture, made it something that would maintain life, and make it tolerable in nature, pointing to perfection and identity as it is found in God. A major factor of the nature of God is love – agape in its purest sense. On occasion the command seems to come out of nowhere, and is impressive as an ideal, but not really practiced effectively in the divine meaning of the reference. It is a factor of life formation, taught as vital for God’s children in Scripture, but a factor for anyone in finding balance and virtue for life. If we had the competence of God, we could measure, in each person, the love quotient of that person, and determine the success or failure he or she would find in the course of living in the natural world to the approval of God.
A minister counseling couples preparing for marriage is often faced with correcting the context in which the couple are facing life together. The love they espouse is seen as something so compelling to the emotions that they can hardly wait for their mutually intimate lives. Many do not wait, so proceed. Emotional fires often burn hot, cool, but return again, cool again, and go out – if they do not grow out of the choice to meet the expectations of objective love. That love deals with the nature of the lover first, and the object later, when the joining occurs. At the time of this writing, the way it is done is to permit the object to determine the degree of love that will pertain. That love can be held in degrees is clear in that Scripture notes that there are those with love, and those with much love. Love has quantitative and qualitative factors in it.
Love is something we do, growing out of the reclamation of character by the choice of love. The object of love has nothing to do with love’s generation, except to use it for benefit – hopefully for mutual benefit. This is the meaning of the text above. We are to love our neighbors, even those who despitefully use us – or try to. We are to love our mates, even those hard to get along with. One’s mate is his or her closest neighbor. We are to love our children, and avoid violating either love or the child, by doing that which is best for them so to find workable solutions to problems, but also to give a sense of worth and love for life in generation and formation. Love leads to problem solving, even at societal levels including government. What a government the German people would have had if Hitler had built his regime on love instead of hatred. He hated virtually everything non-Aryan. Love is so permeating and useful in any context that it can be distorted by those who would love power, or riches, or celebrity, or anything else in wrong degree or in replacement of the balance between self and others. The problem solving most persons face becomes most obvious in the family. The inability to love as God would have it leads to family break-up, poor parenting and relationships, and other complications sometimes seen as too great for us to manage.
God gave a rather simple test that we may apply to be assured we are going in the right direction. We are to love others, all others, which is to say that we care. How do we show that care? We serve others. It is not a willy-nilly serving, but a service to needs. We address the needs of the people of the world without prejudice, without expecting anything in return, and feel joy when we see what is achieved. We learn we can love the unlovely or the lovely. The whole of the matter is within us, and in nothing else. I have thought of the follies of my life as a young person. There were four young ladies who, at different times, were my exclusive girl-friends. The break-ups were difficult and unworthy for mature persons. The last one, now deceased, I married, loved for 57 years – and continue to love. However, if I had married one of those preceding her, we would have lived and loved well, if we related in the applied gift-love of God. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020