Choosing to Love

Today's sermon was titled, "Choosing to Love."  I have always firmly believed that love was a choice.  If it weren't a choice, then how could it be love?  We are not robots.  We are free-feeling human beings to make choices on emotions, and that why these emotions can be very special.  So, I want to talk about love.

We read about all of these quotes about love to try to describe its meaning.  I often go to thinkexist.com (you're welcome for the free advertising) to find some interesting quotes.  Here is what I have found:

“Trying to make someone fall in love with you is about as pointless as trying to control who you fall in love with.”

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.”

“It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.”

I actually really like the last one.  I can be applied to a few issues I have had this past week.  However, that is not the point of this post.

To find out what I believe love is, I turn to the Truth:  The Bible.  (*gasp* offensive material ahead!)  I will be using my sermon notes from this morning to also help me with this post.  I turn to Mark 12:30-31:

 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  There is no commandment greater than these."

1 Corinthians 13:13:

"Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love."

Galatians 5:14:

"The whole law is made complete in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.'"

As you can see, there is a pattern going on here.  Love must be pretty darn important, according to the Bible, especially to 1) your God, and 2) your neighbor.

But what is Genuine Love?  Genuine love is more than a feeling.  Feelings are always flip-flopped around.  It can change in an instant.  Genuine love is not some uncontrollable force.  (So, the 2nd quote above, you can see that I disagree with because genuine love is a choice, and that can be controlled.)  Genuine love is more than attraction.  We are attracted to what we value.  We can have that physical or mental attraction to someone, but is that what we ultimately value when it comes to love and relationships?

What does the Bible say about love?  First, love is a choice.

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  and over all of these virtues on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."  Colossians 3:12-14

Remember in my last post about forgiveness in it being a choice?  It goes for love as well.

Love is something we do. We show love through out actions.  It really astonishes me sometimes how we tell someone that we love them, but our actions speak otherwise.  I know I have lost my temper so many times with the people I say that I love, but losing that temper says otherwise.  Or, when I don't forgive someone of their wrong-doings, I am not showing that I love them. 

Biblical Love: Unconditional, self-sacrificing commitment to help someone become all that God created them to be; and to do all that God planned for them to do.

I want to become a loving person.  I will choose to be patient.  Patience is a calm acceptable for a person at that time.  Christ says, "Come as your are."  We go to Him, scorned, sinful, and wretched.  Now, that is to say, we are to accept that person that they will stay that way.  Remember how we were when we first came to Christ, and how we are now?  I hope that we have all seen changes in our lives, but it has taken time.  Everyone grows at different rates.  Thus, we must be patient. 

I want to become a loving person.  I will choose to be kind.  "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you."  Ephesians 4:32.  Kindness involves caring for someone in the mundane days of life. 

I want to become a loving person.  I will choose to be secure.  To have security in Christ's love is essential.  There is no better feeling.  You choose not to be a victim in life's hardships.  You don't go around blaming everyone else for the trials in your life.  The only way life is fair is that it's unfair to everyone.  But even in the midst of our hardships, knowing that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ brings me perfect peace.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

I want to become a loving person.  I choose to have a servant's heart.  Okay.  Woah.  Time out.  So, you mean, I get to let everyone walk all over me?  No.  Having a servant's heart means that you are not self-seeking.  You invest your life in those around you without expecting anything in return.  You give up your own selfishness in order to become a better person.  Who likes a selfish person?  Who wants to have a selfish heart?  I certainly don't.

I want to become a loving person.  I will choose to go the distance.  I will persevere through life's hardships.  Love always protects, trusts hopes, and always perseveres.

Love never fails.