Have you ever heard someone say, “I love him but I’m just not ‘in love’ with him”? Maybe you have said or, at least, thought the same thing. If so, could your ideas about love be colored more by the world than by God’s Word? So, what is biblical love? Is it what greeting card writers or Hollywood movie producers want us to believe, some irresistible attraction, something we fall into and out of? Or is it something else?
Welcome, to “God’s Word Day by Day” where I blog through the Bible in a Year. I hope you’ll join me every day. If you’re not already signed up, you can do it here. This year I’ve added a couple of new features. First, check out the “Free Resources” tab at the top. You’ll find a downloadable, printable PDF with “Going Deeper Study Questions” for each day’s post. And … this year you’ll find the daily “Bible in a Year” posts on YouTube. The daily emails now have a link to both these Soul Survival posts and the YouTube videos. I hope you’ll sign up. (If you already receive them, no need to sign up again.)
Today’s Readings:
Exodus 39 & 40
Psalm 22.16-21
Proverbs 8.22-31
Matthew 27.1-26
I’m Just Not “in Love” Anymore
Love or “in Love”?
Today is Valentine’s Day, a day when we celebrate love, primarily romantic love. We pick out sweet cards and buy sweet treats for our spouses and romantic interests. Often the focus is on those warm, fuzzy feelings we call love.
Feelings are fine. They are one of God’s good gifts. But when it comes to love, feelings can come and go. They can increase and decrease in intensity during various seasons of our lives, even from one day to the next. They can be affected by physical and circumstantial issues and are, especially, affected by our thought life.
When we first meet, we can’t stop thinking about that other person. We think about all the things we like or to which we’re attracted. As we do, those feelings of love grow.
Then we get married and we start thinking more about how he leaves his socks on the floor, never takes out the trash, didn’t call when he was going to be late, and always wants to go to his mother’s.
And he starts thinking, she’s always on the phone with her girlfriend, she refuses to put the top on the toothpaste and she burned dinner again.
And those are just the little things we start to think about. Before you know it, those warm, fuzzy feelings start to fade.
But biblical love is not based on feelings. It may include feelings but it isn’t the motivating factor.
What is Biblical Love?
So what is biblical love?
God’s idea of love is very different from the Hollywood, greeting card version. The love we see played out on movie screens is often selfish and based almost entirely on feelings and physical attraction.
The God-kind of love is unselfish and based on the welfare of the other person. John said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son …” His love caused Him to give us what we needed.
But what should biblical love look like in the lives of people like you and me?
One Definition of Biblical Love
One definition of biblical love is “a purposeful, sacrificial action for the benefit of another and the glory of God without expecting anything in return.” And one of the best passages to show us what that looks like is 1 Corinthians 13.4-8. Among other things, it says:
- Love is patient. It’s patient when tempted to be impatient.
- Love is kind. Even when the other person doesn’t deserve kindness.
- It’s not envious of others. It’s not envious of their material possessions, their success, or anything else.
- Love is not boastful. It doesn’t show off or brag and is not puffed up with pride.
- It’s not rude. Sometimes we’re kinder to strangers than we are to our own spouses and children. But if God’s love abides in us we will not be rude, either in our words or our actions.
- Love is not selfish, constantly seeking to have its own way. It prefers others.
- Love is not irritable, no matter what the circumstances. It is not resentful.
- Love bears all things. It bears up under hardship. The old King James Version says that love forbears. It puts up with the shortcomings and failings of others. Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4.8).
- Love believes all things. It gives the other person the benefit of the doubt. It believes that God is working in the other person just as He is working in us.
- Love hopes. Biblical hope is much stronger than our “wishing and hoping” kind of hope. It’s expectant.
- Love endures. It perseveres. Love never ends.
Biblical Love & Feelings
This does not mean the love between a man and a woman is devoid of intense feelings or sexual excitement. You have only to read the Song of Solomon to realize that God puts His stamp of approval on those things when they take place within the context of marriage. But when sexual excitement happens outside of marriage or when it’s all a relationship is based on, it will fall far short of biblical love and will seldom last.
Rate Yourself on Biblical Love
Based on the list in 1 Corinthians 13, if you were to rate your love on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being very low and 10 supremely loving, how would you rate yourself? Take a minute and think about it. I’ll wait.
Most of us rate ourselves about a 5 or a 6. We tend to think, “I’m not as loving as I could be, but I’m a lot more loving than so and so.” The problem is “so and so” is not the standard. Christ is! So if you were to rate yourself based on Christ’s love, how loving are you?
Ask yourself:
Compared to Christ, how patient am I? How kind? Compared to Christ, how do I feel when others are blessed? How humble am I when compared to Christ? How unselfish? And we could go on.
Most of us would end up in the negative! And yet, Christ’s love is the goal.
The good news is that we don’t have to grit our teeth and make ourselves loving. We need to contemplate His love for us on a regular basis and contemplate the cross and how it was the greatest demonstration of love. We need to meditate on His Word and His character, ask Him to give us a right heart attitude and the will and desire to do what pleases Him. Then we need to step out in faith and do what love does and allow Him to demonstrate His love through us.
An amazing thing happens when we do. As we begin to think in terms of loving with God’s love, as we begin to speak that way, and as we do the things that love does, our feelings of love often increase exponentially. It’s part of God’s love and grace working in us.
Love, Feelings & Obedience
So, we might sum it up this way. When it comes to our feelings, we should remember that we don’t fall into or out of love. It’s more a matter of thinking ourselves into and out of love.
And when we choose to act in obedience out of a commitment to love God and others, when we do what God calls us to do to show love to others, those feelings grow and strengthen.
Our Story & Biblical Love
If you’re familiar with my testimony you know that my husband and I have proven that living this way, especially in the context of marriage, is a better way to live. It leads to a deepening of love, romance, and intimacy. We have also proven that the opposite is true.
As I write this, we are celebrating our 41st wedding anniversary and I can tell you that we love each other more today than we did when we first met and got married. In fact, we love each other more than we ever thought possible.
If you’d like to read our testimony, you can do so here: “Our Story of God’s Grace & Mercy.”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today’s Other Readings:
Exodus 39 & 40:
Manifesting His Presence
In these two chapters the tabernacle was completed and once it had been set up, the glory of the Lord filled it. What an incredible thing it must have been to “see” the glory of the Lord as a cloud by day and fire by night or to see it fill the temple!
How is God’s Presence Manifest Today?
Today we are His tabernacle or temple. When we receive Christ as our Savior, God in the person of the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us.
1 Corinthians 6.19-20 says:
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
When the world sees us, they should see a little bit of God. We are to let His light shine through us so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven (Matt. 5.16). We do that as we live out His Word—summed up in Matthew 22.37-40.
Psalm 22.16-21:
Sacrificial Love
This passage speaks prophetically of the events of the crucifixion. In particular, they pierced his hands and feet (Psalm 22.16) and they divided and cast lots for His garments (Psalm 22.18).
Everything in the Old Testament points to the time when Christ, our sinless Savior, would willingly lay down His life out of love.
Proverbs 8.22-31:
When He Prepared the Heavens
It took science more than a few thousand years to figure out that the world was round when it was right there in His Word.
When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep … (v. 27).
Matthew 27.1-26:
The Greatest Example of Love
I’m jumping ahead a bit to the second half of this chapter in Matthew. But I want to share it today in the context of biblical love.
The greatest example of biblical love was carried out by our loving Savior who willingly laid down His life for us.
Verses 50-54:
50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
54 So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
He not only died so our sins would be forgiven but when the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom, He made a way for us to have a personal relationship with God. We no longer need a priest to go to God on our behalf. We can now go into the very throne room of God in prayer and find that it’s a throne of mercy and grace.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4.16).
Coming Up:
In the coming days, we’ll talk about the importance of defending our faith, the need to get the logs out of our eyes, and how Islam intends to conquer the West through cultural invasion as well as military. We’ll also pose the question, “Could you be raising little hypocrites?” and talk about what it means to preach the gospel to yourself and why it’s so important.
I hope you’ll sign up so you don’t miss them.
Blessings as you grow in Christ,
Donna ♥
Note about this post:
I began blogging through the Bible in 2012 and have done so every year since then. These posts are the product of many edits and additions throughout those years. Some days I make major changes, other days fewer.
A while ago, I read Jen Wilkin’s book None Like Him about the attributes of God. One is His incomprehensibility. In it, she says, “God is incomprehensible. This does not mean that he is unknowable, but that he is unable to be fully known.”
I have found that to be true each year as I’ve gone back through the Bible. Sometimes I find myself feeling as if a passage just appeared there for the first time. I’m reminded that no matter how many times we read through the Bible, we have only scratched the surface. I hope you feel the same.
Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways,
And how small a whisper we hear of Him!
But the thunder of His power who can understand?” (Job 26.14)
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.