The Challenge 5 March 2003

The Challenge 10 December 2003

Okay, so those of you that actually noticed, I missed last weeks Challenge. I missed it because I was helping build a set for my Churches Christmas play. My good friend Brent and his wife Gwen were doing the majority of the work but I did spend most nights last week at the Church until about 1030 or 1100 helping them. They stayed later than I did most nights. There were other folks that helped Mike, Don and others but it seemed that Brent and Gwen were always there… I only felt like I was always there. Anyway, still doing the set some this week as well but thanks to Gwen’s design and painting and Brent and Mike’s engineering abilities it looks pretty cool. Not sure the teens who will be performing will ever appreciate the amount of time and effort put into that set but it is pretty cool.

Anyway, between the set building and Alissa’s swim meet this past weekend it has just been pretty busy and I went through the Challenge due date without even thinking about it last week. For those of you who missed it, I’m sorry.

What Love Really is

I’ve been meaning to write this for some time now. Some circumstances in my life, some people around me and some questions from some of the folks I was teaching lead me to discuss this in my Faith development Class and to do it as a short 5 minute devotional for my wife’s teen musical drama crew. But even with passing this word to the many that I have already passed it to, I still feel the need to write it down and send it out again. For those of you that have already heard this, it is worth reading again to make sure you understand the concept. For those of you who are married and want to know how you make a marriage last for 30-50 years you MUST understand what Love really is. And most importantly, for those of you who want to love the Lord your God – you absolutely must understand what He means when He says the word “Love”.

The mistake that most people make is that we think of love as a feeling. We love our wives, husbands, girlfriends, and boyfriends. We have that feeling that these people in our lives are very special people. We love family members (mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters) and we love friends as well. Another mistake we make is that the word love has been overused and watered down in our society that we really don’t have a good appreciation of what Love really is. We love our pets, we love our cars, we love football teams, schools, homes, small groups, GREAT CHICAGO FOOD (oops that is my issue not yours – ha ha) and the list can go on and on with all the things we love. We love to do things: Ski, hunt, act, sing, teach, write. Something that we love today, we may not love tomorrow. That new car that you love today may be a lemon tomorrow. That movie series that you loved (like the Matrix) you ended up not loving any more because of the latest release in the series. We break-up with boy/girlfriends and we have seasons in or marriages when we don’t “feel” love for the other person any more and we forget why we married them in the first place. I mean I’m even getting all confused just writing all this down. How can the English word “Love” mean so many different things?

Well, some of us will define the word as there being many different “levels” of love. Love for my parents is different from how I love my boy/girlfriend or husband/wife. Or how much I love Italian food is a different level from how much I love my dog. The problem with this definition is that it is different for different people. My sister-in-law loves her dogs the same way I love my children. She even calls them her children (she has no real children). I on the other hand I love Chicago food more than I love my dog! Loving a TV show is just a different level of love from loving sports. My levels are definitely different from yours in almost every case. We love so many different things in our lives that when you read the word “love” in the Bible it kind of gets lost what God was actually saying. Since most of us reading this believe that God’s word is the ultimate truth we can safely say that God is the final authority on this subject – agreed? So, what did God mean when He writes the word “Love”.

Now you all know that I absolutely enjoy (see I didn’t use the word love this time instead of enjoy although I wanted to J) looking up the Greek and Hebrew for God’s original word. Well, this is no different because when God wrote His Word in our bibles He used two different words in the Greek language which are both translated to the English word “Love”; they are agapao and phileo. Now, I know it is always cool to see the original Greek here but the real cool part is looking up what these individual words mean. We had a great time doing that with the word Heart (kardia) back this past spring and I hope you are getting excited about this one as well. So, what do these words mean. Let’s start with “phileo – it means to be fond of an individual or object. It is a matter of feelings. How about “agapao” – it embraces judgment and deliberate assent (choice) of the will as a matter principle, duty and propriety.

Wow! There is a difference here between the two words that are both translated as Love. One is defined as having to do with “feelings” and the other has to do with the “will and a choice”. That is a big difference. Let’s look at some key passages on what God says and see how we can get some further information on what love is now that we know the difference between feeling love and will/choice love. Why don’t we start with everybody’s wedding favorite 1 Corinthians 13.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (NIV)

Which word does God use for Love in this passage? The word used is agape (which is a form of the word agapao from above). In every single case the word is agape – every time it is used above. In no case is the word phileo! How about some other verses.

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves (agapao) me. He who loves (agapao) me will be loved (agapao) by my Father, and I too will love (agapao) him and show myself to him." John 14:21

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love (agapao) the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Matthew 6:24

He answered: " 'Love (agapao) the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love (actually this word is from the Greek “dianoia” which means “mind” like “mind your manners” but we translate it as love as well in the English language) your neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10:27

So, knowing what you know now and reading those verses above, do you have a new understanding of what God is asking you to do when He says “Love me!” How about re-reading those verses and replacing those words love with “make a willful choice” or “willfully chooses”. It might looks something like this in Luke 10:27 “Willfully choose the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind….” That sure makes a lot of these verses make more sense. In the New Dave Translation (the NDT - ha ha J) that is “Be Willfully Stubborn in choosing God first.” God is asking you over and over to Choose HIM! Choose Him with your will. Choose Him when the world says you are crazy. Believe in Him when the world says there is no God. Choose Him over money and the list can go on and on! He’s telling you that the love He is looking for from you comes not out of feelings but out of your will!

Let me relate this to our original topic and those feelings we have for our significant others (husbands and wives) specifically. Love relationships that last 30-50 years or more have less to do with feelings then they have to do with you and your willful choices! Why do people get divorced? Why do people fall out of “love”? Because they do not understand that Love is a willful choice and not a feeling. My wife doesn’t particularly like this example because it makes me sound like I don’t love my wife in the “feelings” way. That is not the case. I do love her in the phileo way. But, there are times and have been times in our marriage when the feelings of love… that tingly feeling in your gut…that – feeling – of love was not there every second of every moment of every day. There are just seasons like that. Typically someone might say, “I love you but I just don’t like you all the time” or “of course I love you but you just really made me feel bad”. That is what I’m trying to say when I say the “feeling” of love… that gooy, puppy love, gut feeling of being all tingly is just not there 24/7. So, marriages last when they move from phileo love to agapao love. When I willfully choose to love my wife – to choose her above all other women day in and day out, no matter what. When I choose her no matter how I feel that day, no matter what she does to upset me (she never really does but you understand where I’m headed here), and no matter what anyone else says is the appropriate thing to do in our society today (they say well if you don’t feel love then leave). When I make a choice from my will to say that she will be my wife until death do us part, for better or worse, richer or poorer and I mean it. That is what makes marriages last. That is what God means by LOVE! Feelings can come and go but you can always choose to love by choosing what God says is right!

Let’s look at our wedding verse again for one last point…

Did you notice that when God is describing and defining love for us that He defines it as things that you have to make choices to do? Choose to be patient, choose to be kind, choose to not envy, choose to not boast, choose to not be proud. Do not be rude, do not seek yourself, do not be angered, do not hold a record of wrongs, choose to always protect, always trust and always hope and always persevere. Are you getting the picture? Love is something that you have to choose to do. It is an action. It is not a feeling! He wants you to choose Him. He wants you to choose your spouse and He says that when you do these things you have fulfilled the definition of LOVE!

I will never go back on my commitment with my wife because I have made a willful choice to LOVE her until death do us part. I do this because I’m stubborn and I made a pledge to her and because I want to fulfill my pledge to her. What is willfulness in me? It is my stubbornness. My will in this case is stronger than my feelings, stronger than what others around me may think I should do, and stronger than any temptation that may come my way. This same stubbornness is EXACTLY what God wants of you when it comes to HIM. The love He is looking for is that willful/stubbornness that supercedes all other reactions, temptations, thoughts, etc.

Sorry this was a little long but it had to be said. For those of us who are not choosing God with our stubborn will and for those of us who have been struggling with relationships lately with boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives (and I’ve talked to many of you already about this).

So, what do you think Love is now? Do you love with your feelings or with your will? How is your relationship with God? Is it based upon feelings or will? How about with your spouse? Are you stuck in the feelings world or have you grown to include the agapao/willful love?

Until next week ~ Dave

To make comments, to suggest topics you’d like me to tackle, to get past devotionals, or to be added to this weekly “devotional email” please write to: Dave Hansen at philip419@earthlink.net