–noun
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.
Here's my question: What happens when that "feeling" doesn't exist anymore? What happens when the object of our affections is something as temporary as ourselves? As temporary as another person? When we place our feelings and our affections on only another person, then they are only as temporary as a leaf thrown into a fire. We long for love, and we want a love that will last. But since we can't find it on our own, on our own power, we have to hop from "love" to "love", and when our feelings run dry, then that "love" cannot benefit us anymore, and we leave to find our next "love".
Here's my question: What happens when that "feeling" doesn't exist anymore? What happens when the object of our affections is something as temporary as ourselves? As temporary as another person? When we place our feelings and our affections on only another person, then they are only as temporary as a leaf thrown into a fire. We long for love, and we want a love that will last. But since we can't find it on our own, on our own power, we have to hop from "love" to "love", and when our feelings run dry, then that "love" cannot benefit us anymore, and we leave to find our next "love".
So, what if we found a love that was permanent?
Well, a love that's permanent would have to be immortal, right?
Right.
And it would have to be strong enough to put up with me forever, right?
Right.
And it would have to be generous enough to give me everything that I want, right?
Wrong. Love was not designed to give us everything that we think we want. It was designed to radically change us.
See, a love that doesn't change us might as well be as temporary as our fickle feelings. Love should be a catalyst that transforms us into everything that we never could have imagined ourselves to be. It should bring out the best in us, and purify the worst out of us. Love itself is a fire; and if you don't handle it like it's supposed to be handled, then you will get burned, and eventually consumed.
On the one hand, a love that is ignited with the proper care, placed in a controlled area, and allowed to grow can give light and warmth to everyone that sees it. It becomes a safe haven and a beacon that will lead many to itself, and they will be all the better for knowing it.
On the other hand, a love that is not lit with the full knowledge of it's potential can suddenly break free of its captor's hands and spread violently out of control. It becomes a threat and a danger to anyone who dares cross it's path, and if the person that started it stays inside of the danger zone for too long, they themselves will be consumed by their own flame.
The second kind is what I've been hinting at as far as this generation is concerned. Fires are lit within people night and day, and they burn with a bright intensity that may draw people to them, or turn people away from them. But once a strong wind of desire picks up, what was once just a little flame now becomes a forest fire, and it does not stop burning until the lusts that were the ignition are satiated. The other danger here is that a fire of that magnitude does not just die without a fight. If it is not completely put out, the tiniest ember of passion will writhe up within, and that same longing will fan the flame until it turns into an engine of destruction once again. The thing with this kind of fire is that it does not care what it burns in it's path; it doesn't care about the trees that it may incinerate. It only knows that the trees are the fuel source by which it lives, and it rages against them until every tree in its path, every sapling that it comes in contact with is burned to the ground. If our love is not lit properly, then this is the kind of result that we can expect to see from our foolish actions: every person that once surrounded us will become nothing more than objects that can feed our insatiable appetites.
The first kind of love is a completely different story. If you're making a fire, you generally start by locating an area in which to build it, such as a firepit, or an area that will contain the fire. You find the kindling, the wood for the fuel, and then you build your fire. When it's ready, you light it, and slowly but surely it grows into a flame that gives of an abundance of light and warmth to everything around it. Now, a fire needs to be tended to by making sure there is good oxygen flow through the fire itself, making sure that there is fuel, and feeding the flame. Otherwise, the flame would go out and be reduced to embers. When it's properly made, a fire can last you all through the night, and it will still be there in the morning.
Here's the point of this: each and every one of us is a firepit. If we build ourselves on the only Foundation that will ever be secure, Jesus Christ, we know that he will be our boundary marker, and our love will not spiral out of control. It will grow and flourish into something beautifully inexplicable, and it will draw everyone that we come into contact with closer to the source of our love in Christ. If we make ourselves undisciplined and do not bother to trust in Christ to contain and sustain our fire, then we will find ourselves surrounded by a raging inferno of our own selfish creation. When we build our fires with and on Christ, and he is the one who ignites our love, we will find ourselves the bearers of flames that will shine brightly in the darkness that is our world. But just as we must tend to a fire, so we must also tend to our love in Christ. We need to keep feeding that fire with the Word of God, the very words breathed from the lips of our Lord, as well as giving that fire more fuel. But what could we possibly use for fueling a divine love that is driven by God himself?
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship." Romans 12:1 (NIV)
Wait, so I'm supposed to use my body as the fuel for God's love?
No, not exactly.
"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)
The fuel for the fire is our self. When we give our entire selves over to God, we see things in radically different ways. We begin to become purified through the fire of God's Love, which is so incredibly hotter and brighter than our own. We begin to find that everything we thought we wanted was just a pale reflection of what God wanted for us in the first place: our lust after physical love and intimacy becomes replaced with a holy desire to be spiritually intimate with the Father; the void in our hearts that we tried to fill on our own through chasing after the temporary becomes filled to overflowing with God's richness, grace, and mercy; our heroes and idols that we thought were untouchable suddenly fall short of the sheer awesomeness that is God. When we take our self and throw it into the fire piece by piece, we find that everything we ever thought we were looking for just cannot compare to the Love of God. Which brings back the question: What is love, really? If it's not an insatiable thirst after self-fulfillment, then might I suggest it is instead designed to be an insatiable thirst after Christ? All throughout the Gospels we see Christ showing us exactly what love is. He was in perfect community with His Heavenly Father, so that we might see what it was exactly that we screwed up when mankind fell. We were in perfect community with God in the Garden of Eden, and we thought that there was something more that God was holding back from us. God never holds out; he only ever gives out. The trouble is, we just don't see it that way when he gives us things that we don't want. When blessings come, we either acknowledge God and give the thanks and praise back to Him, or we praise ourselves or attribute it to luck. When trials come, God is immediately number one on our list of people to blame. How the heck does that work out exactly?
Love is many things, but we will never understand what they are unless we are first introduced to Love itself. God is Love. Period. Without God, there is no Love.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him." 1 John 4:7-9 (ESV)
"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." 1 John 4:16 (ESV)
I could say a lot more about this, because God has really laid this subject heavily on my heart as of late. For now, however, I'll leave you with 1 Corinthians 13. If there are any questions, comments or concerns about what I have said, please feel free to comment or contact me via PM. Grace and Peace to you in Christ.
1 Corinthians 13 (English Standard Version)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 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. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Solo Dei Gloria
~Kenny K
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