Love

If someone asks you how you are, you normally respond with, “Fine.” What does that mean? Actually, it means nothing; it is just a greeting. What does it mean if someone says, “I love you.”? It means whatever the person had in mind when they said it and that may be different than what the person who heard it thinks. I have done a fair amount of study on the topic of love to try to understand it. Since I have been teaching on love in two of my classes from 1 John and will also teach it in an upcoming seminar, I thought I would summarize some of my findings for you.

First, love is obedience and sacrifice. When Jesus was with his disciples at Gethsemane he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.” And he went a little beyond them, and fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou will” (Matt. 26:38 – 39 NASB).

Love is like a coin with two faces; one face is obedience and the other is sacrifice. Love is not complete unless both obedience and sacrifice are joined together. They are the ingredients of love.

          Obedience: Jesus said, not my will, but yours be done.

       Sacrifice: Jesus was willing to give his life for our benefit, that being eternal life and all its benefits.

How about you? Did you promise that you would love your spouse until death separates you? In America one half of the Christians who made that promise before an assembly of people do not keep their promise and divorce. They are not willing to sacrifice out of obedience and keep the marriage together. Each is not willing to give for the benefit of the other and the marriage fails.

Second, love is demonstrated by eight characteristics. “But the fruit of the Sprit is love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22 – 23). In this passage the fruit of the Spirit is defined as love and I believe that the eight words that follow describe characteristics of that fruit.

If real love dwells in us it will be validated by our behavior and that behavior will exhibit these eight characteristics.

If love is active within us then these characteristics will radiate from us and people will experience them and as they do they actually experience God. How would these characteristics help your marriage relationship? Are these a good foundation for your relationship?

Third, love can be described by fifteen behavioral qualities. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4 – 7 ESV).

These 15 qualities seem to be an extension of the eight characteristics we covered above. They are in a sense an application of them.

When God comes to live in us and since God is love then his love is in us and is available for us to use in our relationship with others. If his love is being perfected in us then the characteristics and qualities of his love should be witnessed in our behavior by others. Putting all of this into one picture shows how valuable his love is to us. This is the potential Christians have in their relationships with others.

Now that we have described love is there something more we need to consider in our relationship with others. For example, “How do people express their love to another or feel loved by another?” I believe it is through what is referred to as the love languages.

Assume that Person A and Person B both took the love language quiz and obtained scores as shown above. Note that Person A and Person B both have the same dominant love language of Words of Affirmation. Since they speak the same love language it should be easy for them to feel loved by the other. Even though the language is the same they should be careful about the dialect. They might want to hear different kind of words. A possible benefit for these two people is their second language. Person A is strong in Quality Time and Acts of Service. Person B is strong in Physical Touch. Person A could learn to speak the language of Physical Touch and connect with Person B that way and Person B could learn to speak the language of Quality Time or Acts of Service and speak to Person A that way.

It is better if two people do not have the same two top love languages. If the top language is the same for both, that is good, but if the second is different it provides a great opportunity to learn a second language, which will broaden one’s life. The characteristics of love each person has provides the benefit of greater quality in speaking their language or in learning a second language.

Consider the scores for Person A and Person B, shown on the slide. Will it be easy or difficult for Person A and Person B to feel loved by the other? It will be difficult as they do not have a common love language. In order to feel loved by the other one or both of them will have to learn another language and that will take time and patience. It is kind of like two people living together with one of them speaking English and the other Chinese.

Person B will want to express his or her love by physical touch or by giving gifts, but that may irritate or mean nothing to Person A. Likewise Person A will probably try to love Person B using the language of Words of Affirmation or Quality Time, but that will not mean much to Person B. These two people will probably struggle in their relationship unless they put forth effort to learn another language. For them having the characteristics of love will be a great benefit in helping them learn the second language.

To help you understand the love languages I would like you to consider the above example that might cause you to think. The example does not include the language of receiving gifts. I want husbands and wives to work on this together. I don’t want you to get upset if you don’t agree with each other. There is only one answer. Hint: start with the goldfish.