Saturday, November 22, 2008

Understanding Love

At its heart, love is all about giving.

Love is not about getting.

Love is also not about giving so that you can get.

Love is not something to be sought for, or something to be acquired or found.

Love is something you give, and you give it because you HAVE it to give.

Love is something within you, something you must find within yourself, and then give away to somebody who needs it.

When that person also has love within themselves, and gives it back to you, we call that “being in love.”

Anything else is something other than love.

I gave love. But it wasn’t well received, because the person I gave it to did not have love within themselves, or for themselves. Therefore, they could not give love back.

Eventually, it becomes impossible to “be in love” under those circumstances. You can care for somebody, and you can care about somebody, you can have love for them…but until you find another whole person who is willing to share love with you out of that wholeness, there is no loving relationship.

As a Christian, to expect somebody who does not know Christ to be able to give love, is unrealistic. They can try, but the love they have within themselves is fragmentary. They have never accepted the life-giving love of Christ within them, therefore they have never been filled with God’s love, so they do not know what real love is.

That is why God’s Word cautions us about being unequally yoked to an unbeliever. In the end, they are unable to meet us halfway; they just simply cannot, it is impossible for them. We will expend a lot of love and energy towards them, but if they do not find God and His love for them…eventually we will have to accept the fact that we cannot partner with them. No matter how much we want to, no matter how much we genuinely care for them…they will exhaust us in time. And an exhausted Christian is ripe for the picking to be caught up more in the world than in God, to slip away from our chosen path, to compromise and grow cold in our loving devotion to God.

Love is something you give, and you give it because you HAVE it to give. And only those who know Love (from above), have real love to give.

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