You Have to Hate What’s Happened to Love

Love is a noble virtue.  The Bible plainly teaches its value and experience confirms its worth.  Love is the central theme in a multitude of historical and literary stories, including Abraham and Sarah, Boaz and Ruth, Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Pocahontas and John Smith, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and of course, Popeye and Olive Oyl…not to mention the never-ending parade of Hallmark movies!  Plus, on a personal level, every couple that is, or plans to be, married has their own love story.  Yes indeed, “love is in the air,” especially during this month.

No other month flies under the banner of love as much as February.  The reason is the celebration of Valentine, a third century Christian pastor who highly valued the idea of the “courtly love” between a man and a woman.  As a result, ever since the Middle Ages, the date of Valentine’s death has come to be the day to memorialize love…not to mention its impact on flower, chocolate, and jewelry sales.

So, what’s happened to love?  Sadly, this most noble virtue has become a victim of a sham.  Indeed, what is promoted as love must be recognized and yes, even despised.  For what has happened to love is truly a tragedy and a catastrophe that is nothing less than, well…heartbreaking.

The culture has twisted and perverted love to the point that it’s almost unrecognizable.  The culture has long polluted love by expressing it in terms of lust…a mere physical attraction that ignites the hormones and stimulates a pounding heart.  But lust is a defiled substitute for love.  Lust is selfish and always wants something.  Lust is short-lived and is always looking for a new object of desire.  Lust is always misleading, wanting to think only of the moment and never caring about the future.  Abundant evidence can be easily found in pop and country music, which (sad to say) have long been the ballads that promote such perverted misrepresentations of love.

Love has been dishonored by the “happily ever after” story endings.  Regrettably, many interpret this to mean that there’s not supposed to be any bumps or difficulties along the road of life, at least not if it’s “true love,” and if there are problems, then it must not be love, so the relationship is abandoned.

Love has been disgraced by the idea that love is just an emotion.  This is the view that you know it’s love when it “feels right.”  To which the question must be asked, what does it mean to “feel right?”  If there was ever a reason for a false positive, it’s the “feel right” view of love.  Eventually, the “just follow your heart” feeling goes away, and then what’s left?  Sadly, this too is the reason why many relationships are begun and abandoned…only to see individuals go to look for another emotional high.  The world of music promotes this lie with their variations of “how can it be so wrong when it feels so right” and “hooked on a feeling” songs.  The Bible warns of this trap when it says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

The worst of all desecrations of love is the idea that love has no ethical boundaries.  Love that is disconnected from biblical ethics is love that is truly perverted.  Love grows best and matures most when it’s exercised within the bounds of God’s intended framework of purity, marriage, and family.  Love outside of those boundaries is a gross misrepresentation of all that God intends love to be.

Without a doubt, love involves an attraction, an emotion, and an anticipation of wonder and excitement.  However, love was never intended to be led by attraction, emotion, and anticipation.  This is because love that reflects the best of God’s intentions will always be patient, kind, truthful, hopeful, enduring, and never failing.  It will not boast, be proud, dishonoring, selfish, or angry (see I Corinthians 13:4-8). 

This type of love is based upon a commitment, one best described in Matthew 22:36-40, where Jesus said to first love God and then to love others.  Extending from this is the love of a husband and wife (Ephesians 5:21-33), the love of a family (Ephesians 6:1-4), the love of other Christians (Galatians 5:13), and the love of other people (Galatians 5:14).  Indeed, the Bible instructs us to be “…rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:17).  So, beware of how the culture always seeks to defile, dishonor, disgrace, and desecrate love, because you have to hate what’s happened to love.

Dr. Harlie Miller,

Executive Pastor