Love Demonstrated: A Choice

Love Is A Choice

     One of the most inaccurate things a person can believe is that "We fall in love."  Hmmm?  So love involves you or me stumbling into the arena of love by accident? Correct?  And you doing so or me doing so, is completely out of our control?  Right?  Well if this is true, then if you or I can fall in love, we can also stumble our way out of it ... especially if life does not turn out as expected.

     Another inaccuracy regarding "love" is that love is the same as you or me feeling all giddy and warm and fuzzy whenever a particular person gets close with whom you or I have supposedly "fallen in love."  Sure we may experience a set of oh so wonderful feelings?  That's fine -- I guess -- because emotions do get involved, especially when things are going well, and especially when the recipient of "love" feels their "lover" is committed to them, accepts them, respects them and empathizes or understands them; thus improving their quality of life.  

     The problems arise when giddy feelings are gone, warm fuzzy feelings are shattered on the table of hard cold life,  and as the "lovers" get older and change dramatically. Then such things as "you aren't the same person I married" leads to "with all these changes, I don't love them" or "I don't love them anymore" enters the thought processes of the brain. This stinking thinking takes over and stinking feeling is not far behind.  So this kind of love falls flat.

     Or we could consider that love's source, as we said a few days ago, is God.  And God IS love.  So how did the ONE we know as LOVE demonstrate love.  We talked about that a bit earlier in another blog as well; however, a simple way to understand this is to look at two of the most famous verses in the Bible.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only biological Son

So that whoever believes in Him will never perish.

But that person will share in God's life forever.

God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world.

But He did send Him so that the world would be

Saved.

John 3:16-17

     Think about this:  LOVE demonstrated His love by giving  love as a choice He made.  He did not slip and fall into love with us, and He did not ever fall out of love with us.  In choosing to love us, there were times when their was a lot of pain and suffering, which was caused by the very targets of His love... we human beings.  He loved us anyway, even when He had to be wounded, bruised, beaten battered, stripped and striped... even though He shed His blood and sacrificed His body to the point of dying. This demonstrated God love is NO warm fuzzy feelings kind of  love. Nor did God's demonstrated love reveal any  slipping and falling into love.  God looked at us, and God made a choice.

     I am not saying you should allow yourself to be continually battered in your relationships, for their is ONLY ONE Savior of the world; however, in a nutshell, since love comes from God,  who is in relationship with us through Jesus His Son, our responsibility is to take this gift of love from God, and prayerfully carefully choose with whom we want to share the greatest of all gifts which is love. 

Don't be naive and let feelings be your guide. For they are simply telling you what you are thinking. God graces Christ-Followers with the supernatural powerful choice of commitment to accept people, respect people, empathize with them and help them to truly live; additionally, God graces us with a choice to commit to marriage and not just shacking up, which is a counterfeit to committed love, which can also involve a merely feelings based relationship.  One more time:  Feelings may come and go, but love "never ends." (1 Corinthians 13: 8a.)  Never forget:

Love IS a CHOICE:
A Committed Choice...
A Choice We Are Given From God...
As We Walk In Relationship With Him Through
Jesus Christ.

SoJourner