Thoughts on Christ's Love

Christ's Message 

Christ gave his life for us and states we must “Love one another. As I have Loved you.”   So we must be willing to lay down our lives for one another and Christ.  This is a powerful message.  We must be of a mindset to give our lives for our fellow man.  

Understanding Love                                 

We have already seen that Love is defined as Giving ones life, but as we do not face death daily what does Christ mean on normal days. Let's start with what do we think of when we think of Loving our daughters; joy, give, protect, respect, trust, nourish, hope, understand, listen, forgiving.  Scripture gives us:  1 Corinthians 13:6 “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”  

Jesus describes joy received by reining in his love in John 15:11 "… my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”  Joy is the warmth in your heart that you receive by giving Love.  Here Christ states that by doing as he asks and loving one another we receive joy.  Joy is one of the fruits of Love, along with hope, security, faith, forgiveness, and respect.  Grouping these fruits and components of Love in causal groupings, reveals the cause and effect, and reveals a cycle and the core components of Love: 

• Giving time openly communicating  truth leads to more Understanding. 
• Understanding and openly communicating truth leads to more Trust, 
• Trust and openly communication truth leads to the fruits of Love: Joy, Hope, Security, Faith, Forgiveness, Respect. 
• The fruits of Love encourage more Giving and Communicating Openness and Truth.

This cycle gets exercised with each conversation between a couple, or with each prayer with the Lord.  Think of it like a treadmill hooked to a generator.  The more it goes around, the more power it generates.  But this is not a one way street.  It requires two participants. 

At the core of all these steps is Openly Communicating Truth.  This cannot be overstated.  It is the KEY to Love.  Love cannot exist without it and it dictates the heights of the Love within a couple.  So matching up capability in communication, openness, and truthfulness, is key in any relationship.  In our relationship with Christ and God this shows the importance of prayer.

There is another parameter that is important as well to maintain a balanced relationship.  That is the balance between inward and outward focus.  Christ seems to imply that we need to be completely outwardly focused.  Giving your life for anther is about as far to the outwardly focused as you can get.

So that gives an overview of how to love in an ideal sense.  There are some practical considerations.  Trusting comes from understanding and communicating openly over time. One bit of truth is that all men cannot be trusted. That is why we put our trust in the Lord and he protects us so that we can act in trust with those who are not worthy of that trust and know we are not going to be harmed.  Because if we do not trust we are judging.  Also when we are done wrong we need to forgive and respect.  If we have gone through the cycle many times this may be easy. But for those we have not we still need to trust, forgive, and respect.  This does not come naturally and must be cultivated within your character.  It is actually a measure of our humility. 

We need to forgive as we are forgiven, as not to forgive is to Judge. Colossians 3:13 “...Forgive as the Lord forgave you."  Further our forgiveness must be boundless. Matthew 18:21-22 “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”  We need to realize that all men are equal in God's eyes and that we are all sinners and anything other than trust, forgiveness, and respect is a form of judging and is not of love.

What Love is Not

It is often easier to define something by stating what it is not.  Fear is not Love as Fear is the opposite of Trust.   John 4:18 “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

To fail to understand someone and make assessments or decisions related to them is to Judge.  Judgement is not of Love as it is not in the spirit of forgiving.   

Love is not controlling, because to seek to control, means one has judged another’s behavior to be wrong and are attempting to curb it to what they have judged as the correct path.  

Love is not judging. In 1 Samual 16:7 “... The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

Romans 2:1 “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?”

Love is not any kind of negative or evil action.