Over the past four years, I’ve heard over and over again from numerous sources that “love” is a decision, “love” is a choice. Perhaps you have heard it too. Often people describe “love” in this way as a reaction towards the growing misunderstanding of what real love is especially as it is portrayed in movies, tv dramas and hence our culture today. Well, I certainly don’t disagree that Love is a decision. In fact, I believe that Decision is indeed a major characteristic of love and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But just as a characteristic does not create the whole, neither does decision create love. Or else we might as well just equate the two together and use the words interchangeably. But just as a square is more than a rectangle, love is, as I propose, more than just a decision (though of course never less.) But this is more than just a proposition. If you will turn your attention to the Scriptures, perhaps we can look together at the face of Love and see just what love really is.
The greatest example of love is of course found in our Lord Jesus. Well that’s a no brainer. His place in the history of mankind when he walked this earth and ministered to the sick, ultimately giving his life as a ransom for his enemies, was what the apostle John calls the truest demonstration of love. Jesus in pouring out his life, set forth an example for us to follow. He made a choice to embrace his enemies and to suffer for their sake. Why? Because it was simply in his gracious freedom to do so. Nobody compelled him, He did it out of pure and undefiled, holy initiative. It was His choice. Love began with a decision.
But listen closely now. Decision does not define love. When Christ decided to love the Church, It was a decision to love. You see, in making a decision Jesus had to direct that decision towards a purpose. That purpose was love. So here we separate love and decision. One begins the act (decision), the other is the act itself (love).
So then, what of the act itself? We see that it is born out of decision, but how does the act look once it is in motion? Here we could go on and on about the different descriptions of love, I predict many would flip to 1 Cor 13, for the list on love. But if we just look at 1 John we can distill a few core points from the love of the Father through the sacrifice of His Son. Here’s the text:
“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
(1John 4:9-10 NAS95S)
Here are the points for 1 John, One who loves an object:
- seeks the ultimate good of its object. Which really means, life through Christ. Jesus is the ultimate good of all men.
- does not expect return from the object but gives of itself freely even if it means harming itself.
- Love takes the initiative. It is not provoked, nor is it conditioned. It is independent in its activity.
- It is easy to miss the fact that God broke the stream of trinitarian Joy for the sake of this love. He sacrificed of himself what was the greatest of His own treasures.
And since everyone is so interested with husband and wife relationships, let’s take a peek at Eph 5, Christ’s love for the Church:
“husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.”
(Eph 5:25-30 NAS95S)
And here is the main point: One who loves an object..
- deeply treasures the object, resulting in great warmth and care towards it.
- see the “because”? The motivation is the treasuring, which results in nourishing and caring. The one who loves, values the object with a strength equal to that with which he values himself. This feeling of treasuring, runs as deep as the will to exist.
So here’s the definition all wrapped up and ready to swallow.
Love is the act of treasuring someone with the strongest of passions so that their best interest is your greatest concern, even at the cost of your own well-being, executed upon decision.
It’s a bit paradoxical isn’t it. How can love involve a decision to treasure, that means in order to love we must call upon our emotions as though they were a switch in the heart. How can that be possible? I thought that too, until I remembered what I learned about Faith. Faith also begins at a decision. Instead of a decision to love, it is a decision to believe. But it shares a common characteristic. Faith also involves a decision to treasure, to consider Christ the pearl of Greatest price. How then do we choose to believe? The simple answer is, We just do. How do we choose to love? We just do. I don’t know how, but somehow we are able to make decisions which lead to faith…which lead to love.
Now we know that making a decision does not always mean you have faith, neither does it always mean that you have love. It is what follows the decision that legitimates the claim. But that’s not all, it gets tougher. As much as faith is a choice, you can’t choose to believe until God grants it. The same goes for love. You can’t love until God moves your heart. Without God, in both cases, all you have is cold, unfeeling, decision.
So if love is more than decision, God must be at work.
So pray and watch to see how He works.
