Love

Published:
July 7, 2023 (one year ago)

Here is one of my favorite quotes about love, Dallas Willard wrote, “Love does not do well in actuality, in the grimy grind of life. Perhaps it is because of the way it is exalted around us, it proves to be a considerable disappointment to most people, and something one can’t really count on.” I confess, I’ve spent much of my life frustrated with love. How do we love someone well? What does love look like in strained relationships? How do we apply truth to love? Does love have boundaries? What do we do when what we thought was love was perceived as something else and we made a mess? Why is love so hard sometimes? If God has poured love into our hearts by His Spirit (Rom. 5:5), why can’t we make more progress? Those questions and a few more, along with the cultural confusion about love make me wonder if Biblical agape love is even possible. After I read the Dallas Willard article mentioned above, I wrote a little booklet titled, “Becoming a Person of Love.” The study and the writing helped me realize that love is not something we do “on demand;” love is a disposition that needs time and atmosphere to grow. Like a garden, it needs weeding. There are attitudes of the heart and practices in life that simply must be ripped out and done away with. Like a baby, our disposition needs nourishment. If we don’t feed our souls the food that develops love, we’ll develop something else. The apostle Peter was way ahead of the spiritual formation curve on this subject. His life with Jesus and the insights of the Holy Spirit gave him a primer on developing a disposition of love. I hope to explain this helpful passage as we gather this week. Beloved, let us love one another, for God is love.