“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40
New English Translation
Love is so confused any more. People rely on feelings, butterflies, physical attractiveness, physical intimacy, and so many other things to determine whether they are “in love.” Yet, I can feel and experience all those things from eating a burrito. Quite frankly, people are so dissatisfied in relationships because they are looking for love in all the wrong ways.
Feelings can change at any moment. Maybe one day you feel like you’re on top of the world and the next you feel like you’re in the pits. The same is true when it comes to people. One minute we can feel like they’re the best person to have on our sides and then one little shift and everything within us changes. Feelings are not what we should base our perception of love on. I can feel like having a burrito, and that’s fine and dandy, but feeling like I want to be with a person is not a solid ground to start a relationship with someone on because eventually you’re not going to feel like having them around when times get a little rocky.
Physical attractiveness seems like an important aspect when it comes to dating, however, it’s a pretty dumb reason to date someone. Just because someone looks good on the outside does not mean that they are a nice person on the inside. It’s on the extreme, but an excellent example: there were numerous serial killers who were very attractive, it actually worked to their advantage!
Physical intimacy. Now this one is something that a lot of people are pretty passionate about. There has been a status quo that relationships require a level of physical involvement, whether it be kissing or holding hands or a number of other things. However, physical intimacy has been proven by psychologists to be the most primitive level of affection, it is displayed primarily by preschoolers in their insecurity. As we grow older, we are supposed to grow out of a need for physical touch to prove intimacy. If two people can only feel love when they can touch, then their love is not real. What about those moments where you are separated? If you cannot feel loved in those moments, the love is not real.
Now that we’ve debunked all the Hallmark requirements for love, we’re left with the question “what is love?” Good question, and very easy to answer. The verses from Matthew 22 that we read at the beginning provide us with the very key to that answer:
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40
New English Translation
If we know that love starts with us loving God, then we know we need to look to scripture for guidance on how to love God. We see in Deuteronomy that the answer is given multiple times throughout the pages, one example is this:
You must love the Lord your God and do what he requires; keep his statutes, ordinances, and commandments at all times. Deuteronomy 11:1
New English Translation
Looking at the above verse, loving God and obeying Him are connected-they are inseparable. Clearly, we can say that loving God is obeying Him!
What does it mean to obey God? It means when He instructs you on things, whether it be through Bible reading or Him speaking to you in prayer or through other people, you need to do what He says. Think of it this way, in a healthy parent-child relationship when a child loves their parents they respect them and because they respect them they obey them to honor them because they love them. It’s a circle.
So, the basics of basics concerning love are these: we must first love God before we can love anyone else and loving God comes down to obedience out of respect.
Now, Jesus made the statement that the second greatest commandment was to love others as you love yourself. Clearly, you can’t love others well until you’ve learned how to love yourself well since loving others is based on how you love yourself. Now, this is a tricky idea for some of us to grasp because we’re like, “but isn’t vanity wrong?” Yes, vanity is very wrong. That’s not what we’re talking about.
Part of loving God is obedience out of respect. When we respect someone, we respect what they care about, treat it well. We are God’s precious creation, we should treat ourselves well. Beyond that, Paul refers to us as the temple of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6:19. Reading about the importance of the temple in the Old Testament we find out that being referred to as a temple is pretty special. The amount of intentional care put into the temple is remarkable. The same should be true about you.
What are ways to care for yourself? Obviously, the baseline is obeying God, plain and simple. You can do everything else but without this you’re really missing the point. Soul care makes every other form of care useful. Another form of soul care is being intentional about what you watch, listen to, and allow your body to physically be involved in.
Jesus said, “Even after all this, are you still so foolish? Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and then passes out into the sewer? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person. For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are the things that defile a person; it is not eating with unwashed hands that defiles a person.” Matthew 15:16-20
New English Translation
What are you putting in your heart? The things you listen to, the things you watch, what you do with others, how you act with others, all these things go into your heart and they will come out. You get to determine what you store and eventually reveal to others. That is why Paul encourages the following:
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of respect, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if something is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things. Philippians 4:8
New English Translation
That is a good standard to live by. Are the words to that song pure? Are the things within the movie you are watching respectable? Are you doing commendable things with your friends? Another easy way to determine whether you should be doing something is to consider, if I could see Jesus’ physical presence next to me, would I still do what I’m doing? Would Jesus do what I am doing? Would I be uncomfortable if certain people knew what I was doing?
Soul care isn’t the only thing we should consider. Since God cherishes us, He does not promote self-harm. It has been proven scientifically that alcohol, tobacco, and drugs all harm the body. God would never encourage us to willingly harm ourselves by using these substances. Another thing to realize is that when people use substances they are considered “under the influence” of them. God wants us to be under the influence of Holy Spirit, not substances.
And do not get drunk with wine, which is debauchery, but be filled by the Spirit… Ephesians 5:18
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Not only does God care about what you put in your body, He also cares about how you speak to yourself.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue… Proverbs 18:21
New English Translation
Your words give live or death. Studies have even proven this. I once read about a study where a teacher had two plants. She had her students speak kind words to one plant and mean words to the other. The one that was spoken to kindly flourished, and the one spoken harshly to withered. Your words contain power. We even saw an example of this when Jesus cursed a fig tree and it withered (Matthew 11:12-14, 20).
What are you speaking to yourself? Are you constantly telling yourself that you are unworthy? Are you telling yourself you are ugly, tainted, broken? All of those are lies and harmful. This is yet another form of self-harm. God would never speak those things over you. He says you are loved, cherished, unique, precious, His child, and so much more. Those truths give life and strengthen you as you begin to see your worth!
All of these things work together as loving yourself. Once we’ve figured out how to love ourselves, which essentially is respecting God and respecting ourselves, we are then equipped to love others. Since we are supposed to love others as we love ourselves, we must respect others as we are to respect ourselves. We are supposed to speak life over one another and encourage each other in treating ourselves with respect. Do note that sometimes speaking life comes in the form of loving correction, don’t shy away from helping someone spiritually grow because you’re afraid of hurting their feelings. Remember, pain comes before growth!
Love is not a feeling, it’s an action, an action that is rooted in obedience to God! Everything in life hinges on whether we love God. So, note to the unmarried readers looking for love, if someone doesn’t love God, they’re not the one for you! Actions show whether a person loves God. Unashamed obedience to God should be the most obvious part of their lifestyle. Don’t settle for anything less than love.
Valentine’s Day is coming, Hallmark is pumping out fake love story after fake love story, but we know the truth. We know what real love is and we’re going to act on it.