Love, Hollywood Style…
It’s probably happened to all of us. We’re watching TV or a movie, when two of the characters become attracted, admit their feelings, and boom – next thing you know, they’re in a sex scene, as though that’s the logical progression and that’s what “love” is. WRONG.
This happened recently while I was watching an adventure series, and I immediately became annoyed. It bothered me partly because scenes like these do NOTHING to advance the plot of the show, and I find that irritating. But it also bugged me because it was done as though that were simply supposed to happen next. Love is so often misrepresented as sensuality that it has become synonymous with sex. And that does the concept of love a major disservice.
What is Love, Really?
While there is indeed a place for sex and sensuality, that isn’t what “love” actually is. Years ago, I did a GC video called, “What is Love?” In it, I first mentioned all those things we tend to associate with love that love is NOT. The “warm fuzzies” you get when you’re around someone you’re attracted to – not love. This is because love is not merely a feeling or emotion. And no, it’s certainly not synonymous with sex. So if that’s not what love truly is, then what ?
In that video, I went on to use “the Love Chapter” of the Bible to illustrate the true nature of love. It tells us the following…
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails;
1 Corinthians 13 NASB
While this is nothing like how the entertainment industry portrays love, these qualities would also seem to go against our fleshly nature. But real love isn’t self-serving. It’s not just out to please itself. Love is quite the opposite of that. In fact, the worldly idea of love is actually childish and immature.
11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.
1 Cor 13 [NASB]
This would seem to indicate that some of us need to grow up and adjust our view of love.
The Greatest Commandment
Not only is love something very different from what we tend to see on TV and in film, it is also of much greater importance. In scripture, love is described as “a more excellent way.” More excellent than what? Hate? Sure, but not only that. To truly love is more excellent than ANYTHING else. It is the foundation of our Christian faith.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 This is the great and foremost commandment.
39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22 [NASB]
Loving God. Loving our fellow man. These are the most important acts we can ever commit, and we are instructed to do so. It is precisely because of this emphasis on love and its significance to our faith that the enemy has sought to pervert it.
Original vs. Counterfeit
Previously, I have eluded to how satan is a counterfeiter. He has nothing original. He takes an existing truth and twists it, perverting it into a lie. This is just what he has done to the original truth of love. The idea of love promoted by this sinful world is a perversion, authored by satan himself – the father of lies.
Whereas genuine love between a man and woman is blessed in God’s design for marriage, the worldly view of love jumps straight to satisfying carnal desires. The sex and sensuality originally given as a wonderful gift to enhance the marriage relationship has been perverted into a strictly self-serving gratification of one’s sexual wants. It has nothing at all to do with LOVE .
God’s original idea of love came from His own nature. This love puts others first, rather than being selfish. It comes from a place of care and compassion, rather than a fleshly need to possess and use for sinful pleasure. Love is something that should permeate our lives and influence our every action. And so, the enemy has tried to flood our minds instead with impure thoughts and selfish desires.
Love One Another
34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13 [NASB]
When Jesus spoke these words, there was no doubt what He meant by it. Likewise, we must seek truth at all times to understand how to carryout His commandment for us to love one another the way He intended. Realize that satan will attempt to confuse and trick us, and he will tempt us with his false idea of love. But it’s our duty as Christians to know the truth and be set free by it, and to truly love as Christ loved us. He loved us so much that He gave Himself for us. He illustrated the perfect idea of love, as He even explained before His crucifixion…
13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
John 15 [NASB]
Through studying biblical instructions regarding love, and through following the example of Jesus Himself, we can learn to show the world what love truly is. And we should seek to do so at all times.
presented by Great Commission Ministries 