Love is Active

Too many people believe and sometimes teach that love is a feeling or an emotion. Feelings and
emotions are involved in love, but the greatest part of love is action-oriented. Love is a verb (what you
do), more than a noun (a feeling).
Love is the language that Jesus taught his disciples. Love can be heard by the deaf, seen by the blind
and felt even by the new-born and the mentally retarded. In a very real sense, each of us as humans
have been given our very own Golden box filled with unconditional love. Love is like the wind. We
can’t see it but we can feel it!
We may give without loving; but we cannot love without giving. Love is giving all we can. Love is like
a smile – neither have any value unless given away. Love cures people – both the ones who give it
and the ones who receive it. Mother Teresa said, “It is not how much you do, but how much love you
put into what you do that counts.”
Many marriages fail because couples value feelings over actions. Many couples feel they have fallen
“out of love”—that they don’t feel the love that they once did for their mate. Yet, there is really no
falling out of or falling into love. We can fall out of bed or fall in the bathtub, but typically lasting and
true love grows for someone over time. Such love for another grows from what we see them do for us
and for others.
Now, imagine if Christ, just before he was crucified, went to the Garden and thought: I hate this
feeling; I don’t feel like doing this, therefore I will base my decision upon what I feel. If that had
happened, we’d all be hopelessly doomed to Hell.
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Good News, of course, is that Jesus resisted and fought back His feelings. Even though He prayed
three times to have the cup removed, He was more interested in doing the will of the Father than
what He might have felt like doing.
Jesus displayed His love by willingly going to the cross and dying for sinners and for those who were
still His enemies and desperately wicked. True love is not dependent upon feelings and emotions,
because feelings are one of the shallowest and most unreliable of all human emotions. Instead, such
love is a choice more than a feeling, because feelings are subjective, while love is objectively
displayed in actions.
The bottom line is that love is what a person chooses to do, not what a person chooses to feel. God
so loved the world because He felt like it? Yes, He does love us, but that love required action, and
that included the supreme sacrifice of His only Son’s life. That was the ultimate love in action.
If we’re to tell others about God’s love, we need to emphasize that love is active, and action-
oriented. Love is a choice we have to make; it shouldn’t be a feeling we choose to have. Is there any
greater love than the one that was displayed on the cross?
The opposite of love is not hatred, because in hatred there are at least some emotions. The opposite
of love is indifference. If we Christians are to teach and share about God’s love, we need to focus on
what God does, more than what God feels. It isn’t that God doesn’t feel love for us, but God’s feeling
love for us was not enough to save us. It was God’s love that cost Jesus His life, and that cost must
be acknowledged with the express desire that we will “love one another just as Christ loved us”.
That type of love, the agape love, comes with a high price…but a price that is every bit worth it! Don’t
you agree? This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10
Live a life that matters. Live a life of love. Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful. Love is not
what we choose to DO. Love is what we choose to BE!! Love is a big thing, but it is made up of small,
daily actions, simple words and shared intimacies.
We don’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and
understanding are sufficient! Encourage someone because life is short! The world has plenty of critics
already! Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you. Vow to be
better than what broke you—to heal instead of being bitter so you can act from your heart, not your
pain!! If we could spread love as quickly as we spread hate and negative thoughts, what an amazing
world we could live in!!
Blessings, Ben