WHAT IS LOVE?

Pastor George Dronen

Midland SDA Church

February 11, 2012

Scripture 1 Corinthians 13

Opening Hymn            O SHEPHERD DIVINE #192

Closing Hymn              LOVE DIVINE #191

What is love? It is one of the most difficult questions for mankind. Centuries have passed by, relationships have bloomed and so has love. But no one can give the proper definition of love. To some Love is friendship set on fire for others maybe love is like luck. You have to go all the way to find it. No matter how you define it or feel it, love is the eternal truth in the history of mankind.  

The Bible is a love story from Genesis to Revelation. It is a story of a Creator God lonesome for His children. His wayward children, a parent who cannot sleep at night until all of the children are home safely.

To the cry of the Creator walking in the garden in the cool of the day calling out, Adam where are you? To the cry of the Savior in Revelation 18, come out of her My people. If you don’t you are lost. That is a cry for the children, a cry of a lover. I want My family back. But probably the greatest cry of love is on the cross Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken ME?” it is because His love was stronger than death that HE would not let go and come down from the cross.

True love is not merely a sentiment or an emotion. It is a living principle, a principle that is manifest in action. True love, wherever it exists, will control the life. Thus it is with the love of God. "God is love;" and in all His works, in all His dealings with mankind, His character is revealed.

God manifested His love in the work of creation. When the earth was created, it was holy and beautiful. God pronounced it "very good."

It is hard to give up a loved one. We will sit at their bedside watching their breathing, listening for any change. One of our pastor couples had a little girl a month or so ago. They were driving I believe and as the father looked over in the car seat the little girl had turned blue and then lost all color. He quickly stopped and they applied CPR and revived her. In the first days when they brought her home from the hospital one of the parents stayed awake all night. They didn’t want to loose their little one. That is what God is like. That is what love is like. He the Father had to make the choice to let us die or give up His Son.

Listen to the pathos, “FOR God SO LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON.”  God was willing to risk it all to redeem fallen mankind.  

1 John 3:1 “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!”

The Apostle Paul writing to the Romans  -  Romans 8:38-39 “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor power, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The Apostle Paul says, Love is patient, love is kind. It has no envy, nor it boasts itself and it is never proud.

Exactly what is this thing called love? Since it is a very broad term, the ancient Greeks managed to define what-is-love and there are four types: agape, eros, philia and storge.


• Agape is unconditional love with a deeper sense of "true love". Example: Giving others your precious resources for loving support without an expectation in return.


• Eros is passionate love. It is mostly sexual but can also be passion for anything, such as car hobbies.


• Philia is displaying love through loyalty to friends, family and community, usually by sharing resources and expecting something in return.


• Storge is natural affection that is often felt by a person for related family members.


Agape is considered the purest form of love. You can love almost anyone when you have agape. You need to learn to love yourself first, then it is easier to give to others with true love. This is the love that Jesus Christ had for humanity. This is the mystery of godliness. That Christ should take human nature, and by a life of humiliation elevate man in the scale of moral worth with God; that He should carry His adopted nature to the throne of God, and there present His children to the Father, to have conferred upon them an honour exceeding that conferred upon the angels,--this is the marvel of the heavenly universe, the mystery into which angels desire to look. This is love that melts the sinner's heart.

I want us to look at some human concepts of love this morning.

Now, what-is-love that is true and meaningful?

A few years ago, a person spoke to a group of high-schoolers about the Jewish idea of love.

"Someone define love," He said.

No response.

"Doesn't anyone want to try?" He asked.

Still no response.

"Tell you what: I'll define it, and you raise your hands if you agree. Okay?

Nods.

"Okay. Love is that feeling you get when you meet the right person."

Every hand went up. And he thought, Oh yeah.

This is how many people approach a relationship. Consciously or unconsciously, they believe love is a sensation (based on physical and emotional attraction) that magically, spontaneously generates when Mr. or Ms. Right appears. And just as easily, it can spontaneously degenerate when the magic "just isn't there" anymore. You fall in love, and you can fall out of it.

The key word is passivity. Erich Fromm, in his famous treatise "The Art of Loving," noted the sad consequence of this misconception: "There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which FAILS so regularly, as love." (That was back in 1956 ― chances are he'd be even more pessimistic today.)

So what is love ― real, lasting love?

Love is the attachment that results from deeply appreciating another's goodness.

Love is the result of appreciating another's goodness.

The word "goodness" may surprise you. After all, most love stories don't feature a couple enraptured with each other's ethics. ("I'm captivated by your values!" he told her passionately. "And I've never met a man with such morals!" she cooed.) But in her study of real-life successful marriages (The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts), Judith Wallerstein reports that "the value these couples placed on the partner's moral qualities was an unexpected finding."

To the Jewish mind, it isn't unexpected at all. What we value most in ourselves, we value most in others. God created us to see ourselves as good (hence our need to either rationalize or regret our wrongdoings). So, too, we seek goodness in others. Nice looks, an engaging personality, intelligence, and talent (all of which count for something) may attract you, but goodness is what moves you to love.

Love is a Choice

If love comes from appreciating goodness, it needn't just happen ― you can make it happen. Love is active. You can create it. Just focus on the good in another person (and everyone has some). If you can do this easily, you'll love easily.

At an intimate concert in which the performer, a deeply spiritual person, gazed warmly at his audience and said, "I want you to know, I love you all." You can smiled tolerantly and thought, "Sure." Looking back, though, we realize our cynicism was misplaced. This man naturally saw the good in others, and our being there said enough about us that he could love us. Judaism actually idealizes this universal, unconditional love.

Obviously, there's a huge distance from here to the far more profound, personal love developed over the years, especially in marriage. But seeing goodness is the beginning.

By focusing on the good, you can love almost anyone.

Love can occur between two or more individuals. It bonds them and connects them in a unified link of trust, intimacy and interdependence. It enhances the relationship and comforts the soul. Love should be experienced and not just felt. The depth of love can not be measured. Look at the relationship between a mother and a child. The mother loves the child unconditionally and it can not be measured at all.   A different dimension can be attained between any relationships with the magic of love. Love can be created. You just need to focus on the goodness of the other person. If this can be done easily, then you can also love easily.

Depending on context, love can be of different varieties. Romantic love is a deep, intense and unending. It shared on a very intimate and interpersonal and sexual relationship.  The term Platonic love, familial love and religious love are also matter of great affection. It is more of desire, preference and feelings. The meaning of love will change with each different relationship and depends more on its concept of depth, versatility, and complexity. But at times the very existence of love is questioned. Some say it is false and meaningless. It says that it never exist, because there has been many instances of hatred and brutality in relationships. The history of our world has witnessed many such events. There has been hatred between brothers, parents and children, sibling rivalry and spouses have failed each other. Friends have betrayed each other; the son has killed his parents for the throne, the count is endless. Even the modern generation is also facing with such dilemmas everyday. But love is not responsible for that. It is us, the people, who have forgotten the meaning of love and have undertaken such gruesome apathy.

Susan learned about this foundation of love after becoming engaged to David. When she called her parents to tell them the good news, they were elated. At the end of the conversation, her mother said, "Darling, I want you to know we love you, and we love David."

Susan was a bit dubious. "Mom," she said hesitantly, "I really appreciate your feelings, but, in all honesty, how can you say you love someone you've never met?"

"We're choosing to love him," her mother explained, "because love is a choice."

There's no better wisdom Susan's mother could have imparted to her before marriage. By focusing on the good, you can love almost anyone.

Actions Affect Feelings

Now that you're feeling so warmly toward the entire human race, how can you deepen your love for someone? The way God created us, actions affect our feelings most. For example, if you want to become more compassionate, thinking compassionate thoughts may be a start, but giving (charity) will get you there. Likewise, the best way to feel loving is to be loving ― and that means giving.

While most people believe love leads to giving, the truth (as Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler writes in his famous discourse on loving kindness) is exactly the opposite: Giving leads to love.

What is giving? When an enthusiastic handyman happily announces to his non- mechanically inclined wife, "Honey, wait till you see what I got you for your birthday ― a triple-decker toolbox!" that's not giving. Neither is a father's forcing violin lessons on his son because he himself always dreamed of being a virtuoso. (verCHoo oso)

True giving, as Erich Fromm points out, is other-oriented, and requires four elements. The first is care, demonstrating active concern for the recipient's life and growth. The second is responsibility, responding to his or her expressed and unexpressed needs (particularly, in an adult relationship, emotional needs). The third is respect, "the ability to see a person as he [or she] is, to be aware of his [or her] unique individuality," and, consequently, wanting that person to "grow and unfold as he [or she] is." These three components all depend upon the fourth, knowledge. You can care for, respond to, and respect another only as deeply as you know him or her.

A story is told about a soldier who was finally coming home after having fought in Vietnam. He called his parents from San Franciso.

"Mom and Dad, I'm coming home, but I've a favor to ask. I have a friend I'd like to bring home with me"

"Sure," they replied, "we'd love to meet him." "There's something you should know the son continued, "he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting. He stepped on a land mine and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us."

"I'm sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live."

"No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us." "Son," said the father, "you don't know what you're asking. Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on us. We have our own lives to live, and we can't let something like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just come home and forget about this guy. He'll find a way to live his own."

At that point, the son hung up the phone. The parents heard nothing more from him. A few a days later, however, they received a call from the San Francisco police.

Their son had died after falling from a building, they were told. The police believed it was suicide.

The grief-stricken parents flew to San Francisco and were taken to the city morgue to identify the body of their son.

They recognized him, but to their horror they also discovered something they didn't know.

Their son had only one hand and one leg.

Opening Yourself to Others

The effect of genuine, other-oriented giving is profound. It allows you into another person's world and opens you up to perceiving his or her goodness. At the same time, it means investing part of yourself in the other, enabling you to love this person as you love yourself.

The more you give, the more you love.

This person met a woman whom he found very unpleasant. So he decided to try out the "giving leads to love" theory. One day he invited her for dinner. A few days later he offered to help her with a personal problem. On another occasion he read something she'd written and offered feedback and praise. Today they have a warm relationship. The more you give, the more you love. This is why your parents (who've given you more than you'll ever know) undoubtedly love you more than you love them, and you, in turn, will love your own children more than they'll love you.

Because deep, intimate love emanates from knowledge and giving, it comes not overnight but over time ― which nearly always means after marriage. The intensity many couples feel before marrying is usually great affection boosted by commonality, chemistry, and anticipation. These may be the seeds of love, but they have yet to sprout. On the wedding day, emotions run high, but true love should be at its lowest, because it will hopefully always be growing, as husband and wife give more and more to each other.

A woman once explained why she's been happily married for 25 years. "A relationship has its ups and downs," she said. "The downs can be really low ― and when you're in one, you have three choices: Leave, stay in a loveless marriage, or choose to love your spouse."

Dr. Jill Murray (author of But I Love Him: Protecting Your Daughter from Controlling, Abusive Dating Relationships) writes that if someone mistreats you while professing to love you, remember: "Love is a behavior." A relationship thrives when partners are committed to behaving lovingly through continual, unconditional giving ― not only saying, "I love you," but showing it.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. 
William Shakespeare.

Seventy-five years ago a set of books was published called Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories.

There is a story in one of the volumes called “SAVED BY AN ONION,” has anyone heard the story?

Okay, I am safe to tell it.

In the early days of American history, when the Western States were being developed, some of the hardest-working people were ministers of the gospel. These were the “circuit riders,” who rode on horseback from one little community to another, preaching and conducting baptisms, marriages, and funerals. Sometimes they would be away from home for months at a time, enduring all sorts of hardships and riding thousands of miles a year.

Mr. Matthews was one of these brave and busy circuit riders. He had a huge parish, covering hundreds of miles in every direction, which constantly called for all his time and attention. What with these heavy duties and his large family of twelve children, he was sometimes a very tired and harassed man.

Coming home one day after a long absence, he found that his son Jack had failed to complete some work that had been assigned him. Heated words were spoken, and it was not long before Jack was suffering from the effects of a severe thrashing.

Now Jack was a high-spirited boy, and nothing wounded his pride so much as being thrashed, especially when he felt that he did not deserve it. This time he as so enraged that he determined to run away from home.

His favorite sister, Margaret, who was about his own age, pleaded with him not to go, but he would not listen to her. She begged him to think over his rash resolve, to let everything rest for a few days, but nothing would move him. He had decided to go and go he would.

Next morning, without saying good-by to any one but Margaret, Jack went away, determined never to return to his father’s house.

Now it was Margaret’s turn to be cross. She, of course sided with Jack, and said it was her father’s fault that he had gone away. Therefore she would have nothing to with her father, nor with his religion.

Every day she become more and more bitter. She would hardly speak to either of her parents and positively refused to take any part in family worship. She would neither read the Bible nor say her prayers, and in her heart she secretly resolved that she would never be a Christian, never!

Meanwhile no word came back from Jack. He had vanished completely out of the home. Margaret felt that the joy of life had gone out with him, and her heart became hard as steel.

Then one morning, while preparing the dinner, mother discovered that she needed just one more onion, and Margaret was the only daughter near at hand to send.

“Margaret!” called mother. “I do so need just one more onion to finish this potpie. I wish you would go and fetch me one.”

“Where are they?” asked Margaret, coldly.

“In the barn, on the second floor,” said mother. “Mind how you go up the ladder, dear. And you might bring me two or three extra ones while you are about it.”

Margaret went without a word, or even a smile. She had long since ceased to smile around the house, and was secretly longing for the day when she could run away, too. Then she would go and find Jack.

Going over to the barn, she climbed the ladder to the second floor, and, looking around, soon saw where the onions had been laid out for winter use. She picked up half a dozen, and was walking back to the ladder, when she heard a noise below.

Footsteps! Some one was coming stealthily toward the ladder

Who cold it be?

Holding her breath, she listened and guessed that it must be her father, the very last person on earth she wished to meet just then.

Suddenly all the hatred she had been fostering in her heart overflowed. She did not want to speak to him, no, nor to look at him. She never would again, never!

But what could she do?

Looking around quickly, she spied an old, unused door leaning against the wall. It was the only possible shelter; so on tiptoe she ran swiftly toward it, and was barely hidden when she heard her father coming up the last section of the ladder.

Holding her breath for fear he would detect her presence, she waited anxiously, hoping he would go down again immediately when he found the loft empty.

Both he did not go down. Instead Margaret heard a strange sound as of something falling gently on the floor, and she held her hands together in fright.

After a few moments of fearful suspense she heard her father talking out loud. Had two people come up into the loft?

No, he was praying!

Cramped behind that door, Margaret listened to the most wonderful prayer she had ever heard—and she couldn’t run away from it. She just had to stay and hear every word.

Father was praying for his family. For every child, from the oldest to the youngest, for Margaret herself, and especially for Jack. When he reached Jack he broke down completely, sobbing as if his heart would break; asking God to forgive him for being so angry with Jack as to drive him away from home; praying that even now God would move upon Jack’s heart by His Holy Spirit and bring him back again.

Margaret was stunned, overwhelmed.

So father did love Jack after all! And wanted him home again! And was so very, very sorry he had been angry with him!

More that that, he was willing to pray for Margaret, too! Margaret, who had been so rude to him, so heartlessly cruel to him all these many weeks since Jack had left. She knew she had not prayed for father like that.

Suddenly she felt she could not stand it a moment longer. She must run from the scene, or her heart would break.

Margaret rose and slipped from behind the door. As she did so, she caught sight of father kneeling on the floor, wiping the tears from his eyes.

She gave in. “Father, I’m sorry,” she said putting her arms around his neck and bursting into tears. “So are we all, Margaret,” he said. And everything was all right again from that moment.

Meanwhile mother was beginning to fuss about the missing onion, wondering why Margaret had been so long fetching it. But when she saw father and daughter coming across the yard with arms around each other, faces tear stained but radiant, with a mother’s intuition she suddenly understood, and ran out to meet them, the onion and the pie all forgotten.

That night, believe it or not, Jack returned.

In latter years, by the way, Jack himself became a minister, and Margaret a minister’s wife.