Up until this point we have been considering the principle of love, real true love as demonstrated in the life of Christ. His love was divine in origin and was the practical illustration of how love should be revealed.
By studying the life of Christ we learn that if love is to be recognized it must find expression through three basic features of one’s personality and character.
Love should be seen in the looks and manners and heard in the tones of the voice. Mark 10:21/ John 19:26/ John 13:23
Immediately, as we evaluate our own lives, we begin to see problems. As human beings our looks, our manners and our tones of voice do not always reveal love. Human love is not consistent.
THERE ARE ONLY TWO TYPES OF LOVE:
DIVINE LOVE & HUMAN LOVE
HUMAN LOVE
Have you ever noticed when someone close to you seems to love you and at other times that person seems to dislike you ? Is good to you and sometimes not so good ? Consider this...
Human love may change but CHRIST’s love knows no change
...GOD is love.” (1 John 4:8) “...I am the LORD, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6)
Have you ever wanted the attention, recognition, appreciation or love of another human being ? Think about this...
1. The heart yearns for human love, but this love is not strong enough, or pure enough, or precious enough, to supply the place of the love of JESUS.
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love : Jeremiah 31:3
2. When it is cherished in the heart the love of CHRIST is preferred to the love of any human being. (Romans 8:38,39/Luke 10:27)
Notice how one author shares some inspired principles of guidance for human relationships...
Your love for that which is human is to be secondary to your love for God. The wealth of your affection is to flow forth to Him who gave His life for you. (John 15:13)
We are to have supreme love to God, and our friends are to be loved secondarily. Our love for husband, wife, brother, sisters, father, or mother, must be inferior to our love to God. (Matthew 10:37)
And only as we love God supremely is it possible to love our neighbor impartially. (Matthew 22:37-39) This is contrary to the popular idea that people must love themselves first in order to love others. Actually, it is in the tendency of human nature for people to love themselves first and in a false way or too much. This is called self-love or selfishness and it really isn’t love at all. Those who sow selfishness will reap selfishness. In rejecting the love of Christ they reject that which alone can impart purity and steadfastness to human love.
Notice that human love is not to be discarded or totally abandoned. It is to receive its purity and steadfastness from the love of Christ. Human love alone will never satisfy the deep longings of the soul which were implanted there by the Creator Himself. Neither you or I however, would want to live this life without human love so don't despair. God's plan for human love gives it a beauty, depth, value and purpose that most people have never experienced...
We will continue to study these things in our next post...
© 2009 Tyrone Keels
www.issues-of-life.com
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