I recently had a conversation with someone about communicating love to others by what we say and do. As believers, we are called to love. Not many would argue that, but as my conversation revealed, confusion and differing interpretations still exist for just how we ought to demonstrate that Christian love.
Feeling a sense of love for someone and actually communicating it to them are two distinct things. I'm sure many of us have experienced that gap at some point or another. We struggle to demonstrate outwardly what we feel on the inside, and we feel the frustration of knowing that a special individual really does love us, but just isn't very good at conveying it all the time. Why the disconnect between heart and hands, between heart and head?
Part of the difficulty is that people communicate love in different ways. Gary Chapman wrote a book based on this very principle, The 5 Love Languages, in which he details the five primary ways people communicate love: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, physical touch. I won't rewrite the book here, but it is a helpful concept.
Here is just one possible example of love languages played out (if you've already read the book or are familiar with the concept of love languages feel free to skip the next couple paragraphs):
I might feel most loved when you tell me that you love me (words of affirmation). But maybe words don't really mean a whole lot to you, and instead you show love by doing stuff for me (acts of service). Thus, every time you do something for me you are sincerely demonstrating a heartfelt love. Unfortunately, if I don't hear you verbally tell me that you love and appreciate me, I may not feel loved, despite all your efforts. In a similar fashion, I could tell you all day long that I love you, but if I never do anything for you to show it, my words don't go very far in communicating that love to you in a way that you can really feel it.
Add to the mix the fact that people often have more than one love language and you've got another layer of challenge to work through. On top of that, people often give and receive love in two completely different languages. Maybe I feel most loved when you tell me that you love me (words of affirmation), but I demonstrate my love for you by doing things for you (acts of service). With five different love languages, you can see how things get pretty complex.
But as I talked with my friend and considered the demonstration of love in light of Scripture, I kept coming to the conclusion that all this complexity isn't the real issue that makes communicating love such a tricky thing.
To cut right to it, the real issue is our own selfishness. We think more about ourselves than we do about others. We want to feel loved more than we want to make others feel loved. But real, genuine love is not just that warm and fuzzy feeling. Genuine love is a choice, and it is costly.
In His sermon on the mount, Jesus presented many radical lifestyle concepts, including a call to love in action that isn't exactly mainstream (Matthew 5:43-48). He said, "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" and asked "if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" Hmmm.... suddenly this whole love thing doesn't seem so warm and fuzzy after all. In the same passage, Christ sets the bar of obedience high, saying "be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." Eeesh! I certainly have a long way to go!
So what does perfect love look like? I could reference the all-important "love chapter" (1 Corinthians 13), but I wouldn't want you to think I'm just being cliche. If you want an idea of where you're love life is and how you might need to grow, by all means read it and compare your love to its list of attributes. It's an excellent reality check that we should often return to, and if the standard is perfection then I have my work cut out for me.
But when I thought of love while conversing with my friend, and as I have continued to meditate on it since, my mind has come to rest on One Individual - the greatest example of love - Jesus Christ. There wasn't a particular verse or passage that stuck in my mind, just Christ. Christ, and the cross. His cross.
That is love. It is self-sacrificing, and it is costly. It puts the object of its affections first, and considers their needs above its own, not just once or twice, but always. Christ's love took Him to the cross. It cost Him His very life, and if we claim to follow Him, we are fools to think that love will demand any less from us. Genuine love may cost us everything we have.
In light of that, it's no wonder we struggle to communicate love to one another in legitimate ways. In even my most unselfish moments I am not free from self-interest. Rarely do we do things for people that really don't benefit us in any way, shape or form and actually cost us something. More often we tend to do things that cost us a little time, effort, or money, but still benefit us in the end. Or we say or share something for the benefit of another, as long as it doesn't cost us much. With the standard being perfection, I fall far short.
My quiet time this morning stirred my mind once again in this area of self-sacrifice and others-focus. In reading 1 Corinthians 8, I was convicted by Paul's willingness to lay down his personal rights and freedoms for the sake of another. At the end of the chapter he says, quite simply, "Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble." Just like that, he was willing to give up meat and change his entire lifestyle for the benefit of a brother. No hesitation. No questions. Clearly, Paul was more concerned about the needs of his brother than any personal cost or inconvenience.
As I consider the real-life implications of such love I am both challenged and comforted. Christ has gone before, and He does not ask me to go anywhere that He Himself has not been. Yes, the cost is great - "He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16) - but the motivation is far greater - "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."Labels: every day life, journal/quiet time, reflections