Choosing love
Love is a decision. I write this with a new perspective. Someone brought up the fact that making love a decision may not be romantic or sound like it is from the heart, but to me it is in the choosing where most of our meaningful experiences begin.
Furthermore, I don’t see love as a feeling that comes and goes, but as an unconditional state. Love as unconditional - our world sees that as crazy, but God loves us unconditionally. Jesus tells us that God loves us like a father who, even when scorned, waits for us to return and then greets us with open arms (Luke 15:11-32). Read this story — really read it. It will show you how we can love those who turn away from us — it will also show you how we are loved by a God we turn away from everyday.
Who are you deciding to love? What is stopping you? What are you going to do about it?
Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13:1
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
We live in a sick and broken world and it will only be reclaimed when we begin to choose to love.
- Written by Matt Brown
April 26th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I couldn’t agree more! Love IS a choice - UNCONDITIONAL love as well (imho)! Others could decide not to love us based on our actions – if God weren’t, well, God, s/he could choose not to love us based on these same actions. But being perfect, God can over-look all our warts and love us no matter what.
In my early twenties I discovered that if I was starting to have negative feelings for someone I could do something nice FOR THEM… and it filled ME with a sense of peace and love for THEM – try it sometime. Remember that saying “Practice random acts of kindness†– I say practice INTENTIONAL acts of kindness – it feels gooooooooooooooooooooood!
April 26th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
This is awesome! When we can begin to understand love in the context that Matt has presented it here, we will change the world! This is the kind of love that Jesus came to show, not all the other kinds we see in TV, books, and on the street. This is what those who follow Jesus are called to live out - Intentional Acts of Love that are not tied to the person’s worthiness of that love (or perhaps as Beth says may be directly opposite of their worthiness, or ours), but is given freely and without strings. Intentional is such a great word!
June 1st, 2007 at 2:33 pm
This a great distinction made here between love as feeling and love as an act of the will. The ancient Greeks believed in four loves, and the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis wrote a book on all four. The highest love, what the Greeks called agape, is selfless and unconditional. It is God’s love, and when we strive to be Christ-like it is what we practice towards others, both friend and foe. We are to love even and especially when we “don’t feel like it.” Love in this way is truly revolutionary! Love changes things!