Loving Isn’t Always Easy
What is Love?
Why is it sometimes so hard even to love the people we love most? Surely I’m not the only one who’s been stung with regret for talking to my wife or child more harshly than I would ever talk to any of you. I don’t know why loving loved ones isn’t always easy. Maybe we subconsciously assume their commitment to us means they’ll tolerate high doses of unloving treatment. Maybe loving loved ones is hard because they’re the ones who have the greatest ability to hurt us, and so we withhold love when we haven’t felt loved.
Of course, if you’re reading a blog on biblical counseling, you probably shun the world’s insistence that love is first of all a feeling. The Bible says love is a command—the first and greatest command in fact: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Then there’s the second one which is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Christians are commanded also to love one another (1 John 3:23) and even to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). And nowhere does God say we’re free to disregard these commands when we’re not feeling very loving or when others are unlovable (trust me, I’ve looked).
What’s more, we’re commanded to love because we are loved by God (1 John 4:19). Out of the abundant love God has for us, we are to love our loved ones, even when it’s hard.
Are you with me, that even when it’s not easy, we must love? If so, it’s time to get clear on, what is love? Forgive me, even as I type those words, “what is love,” a ‘90s pop song derails me— ”What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more…” Even if you (mercifully) have never heard the song, its chorus already has a home in your heart. We all struggle to love because the people we love hurt us. And yet this is the high call God asks of all of His children, to love people who hurt us—enemies bent on our harm, neighbors who could not care less about us, fellow church members who ask so much and often give so little. The command to love is a hard one. But, beloved, God is not asking us to do what He has not already done. God loves sinners, which means He loves people who are not only unloving, but are also unlovely. As a matter of fact, the only people God loves are people who are hard to love.
If we look at God’s love for sinners, an answer to our question, “What is Love?” starts to emerge. See if you can spot an action that’s present when God loves:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son…” (John 3:16)
“And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:2)
Did you see what love is in God’s love for us? I sure hope so, dear Reader. When God loves, He gives. God the Father loved the world in this way: that He gave His only Son (houtos, translated “so,” is not a quantitative word about how much God loves the world but an instrumental word about how God loves). And God’s Son loves in the same way as His Father; He gave Himself up for us as a sacrifice for sinners.
What is love? Love is giving sacrificially for the benefit of another. It’s an action, not a feeling. Here it is again, in Galatians 2:20, “…I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
In “What Do You Do When Marriage Goes Sour?” Jay Adams surveyed the Bible’s teaching on love. My mentor, Dan Kirk, adapted Adams’s conclusion into a phrase he made me memorize:
This is love: I give what I have, that you need, because God wants me to, regardless of how I feel.
Note how Jesus embodied “I give what I have, that you need”: the Son of God was sent to the world to give what He had, and what sinners like you and me didn’t have. What did we need? The righteousness without which no one will see God. So the Son of God took on flesh to live a life full of obedience in fellowship with God. That way when He gave His body in death on the cross, He did so as a substitute for sinners. And once He paid our sin debt and was raised from the dead, He could then give to all who believe something else we needed: His own relationship with God.
See how Jesus loved us—He gave Himself so that He could give to us righteousness in exchange for our unrighteousness, and relationship with God in exchange for enmity with God. And He did this “because God wanted Him to, regardless of how He felt.” Jesus felt the love He gave. Even before He was nailed to the cross, in the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus contemplated the cup of God’s wrath, He admitted to feeling “very sorrowful” (Matthew 26:38). Jesus asked if there was another way for salvation to come. But the Bible records no alternative given by His Father in the eleventh hour. This reinforced what the Triune God had decided in eternity past: that God wanted His Son to save sinners by dying in our place.
In other words, this is how Jesus loved: He gave what He had, that we needed, because God wanted Him to, regardless of how He felt.
Significantly, “sorrow” wasn’t the only thing the Bible says Jesus felt when He loved us in this most costly of ways. God says Jesus also felt “joy” (Hebrews 12:2). It’s no wonder that our perfect Savior felt joy when He loved the way God wanted Him to. Though the cross meant excruciating pain and shame for Him, Jesus was joyful knowing it would mean giving His righteous standing and His relationship with God for us.
“This is love: I give what I have, that you need, because God wants me to, regardless of how I feel.” It’s a great definition. Jay Adams showed how this biblical approach to love addresses struggles in marriage. But you can probably imagine how God’s view of love can equip you to love when it isn’t easy.
Because of Christ’s love, parents can give the patient instruction and gentle discipline their teenager needs, because God wants them to, regardless of how their child’s disrespect makes them feel. Church members hurt by a business deal gone bad can give forgiveness to one another, because God wants them to, regardless of that feeling like they’re letting the other “walk all over them.” Believers afflicted with anxiety over caregiving can give kind service to their aging parents, because God wants them to, even if they feel stressed by mounting demands or financial responsibilities.
Thankfully the Bible not only tells us that God commands us to love, it also doesn’t leave us to define love. The Bible even tells us what we can be doing to get ready to love in this self-giving way. “How to Love” will have to wait for another day. In the meantime, memorize that definition. Your next opportunity to love is right around the corner, and it may not be easy.