“And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’” – Luke 10:27
“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,but have not love, I gain nothing. 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. Love never ends.” – 1 Corinthians 13:3-8
Love is cheap.
At least, in our culture and society, it certainly is. We say things like, “I love cheeseburgers!” or “I love that movie!”. We also love cars, hobbies, three day weekends, and we really love four day weekends. And then, in the same breath we use the same word to describe our affections for our spouse, children, friends, and our God.
So we love Chick-fil-A and we also love Jesus? Hmmm.
I get what we’re saying when we use the word. We’re saying that we really, really, really like something. I get that. And I do it myself all the time. However, it’s possible to use the word so liberally that we lower the level and power of what the word “love” actually means.
So if asked the question, “Do you love God?” We of course say, “Yes.” However, do we mean it in the same way we love The Dollar Menu? There should be an extreme difference in the way we live out our love for God and the way we live out our love for well, anything else.
Remember in Luke 14:26 where Jesus tells us that we can’t be His disciples if we don’t hate our families and even our own lives? Jesus is actually not saying we should hate them, He is simply drawing a picture for us of how extreme the contrast should be in our love for God compared to our love for anything else.
Do we really love God with our whole entire being: heart, soul, mind, and strength?
Do we really love people with the same love that we have for ourselves?
Do we love God and others as love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13?
One of my favorite things to do is use the definition of love as described in 1 Corinthians 13 as a comparison to my love for God and others. If I find myself being rude to my wife, then I’m lying when I tell her “I love you” because love is not rude.
Hard words. I know.
I’m not saying there are no seeds or development of love in my heart when I make mistakes. I’m simply suggesting that God has a different dream in mind for the way I treat her when I’m rude and the dream is His definition of total, pure, and complete love.
I challenge all of us to use 1 Corinthians 13 as our standard in defining our love for God and others. If we find ourselves being rude to others, we may indeed love things like french fries and snow cones more than people.
Love you fam!
Brice Tabor
