What's Love Got To Do With It?

I just returned home from our church's annual Valentines Couples Banquet. We do it every year lately and it's always a great time and I get up and share a little bit about love and I did this year as usual, but this year something hit me that I've been thinking of ever since I got home. What's love got to do with it? I know, you think I was listening to Tina Turner on the way home, but I wasn't. I was driving my daughter's car and the CD in the CD player, believe me, was anything but Tina Turner, but her song and the question it raises suddenly made sense to me. I've actually made sarcastic remarks about the song ever since it's release. For those who don't remember the lyrics, they say, "What's love got to do, got to do with it? What's love, but a second hand emotion?" And I've always tongue in cheek asked that question of my congregation when talking about love, but tonight I understand why she asks the question, besides the fact of the terrible behavior of Ike Turner, but that's another topic for another time...

The question can especially be asked of this narcissistic society, "what's love got to do with it?" when we look at what is being pawned off as love, no one has any idea what love is and when it falls apart; when that second hand emotion gives way to reality what are we left with?

Don, some may be thinking, what in the world are you babbling about? Exactly this. We have heard songs since we were kids promising some fairy tale love, some all powerful emotion that is going to overwhelm us and take over every fiber of our being and cause us to ride off into the sunset with our princess or prince and live happily ever after because we have this wonderful emotion called love!!! John and Paul even wrote a song espousing that All You Need Is Love and we can change the world and people bought it.

The problem is, what they were offering was a cheap substitute for love. Hear me out. In the day of the new morality (which was simply old immorality that everyone decided to accept as OK) sex became some sort of recreational pass time and love, well love... love? Love went the way of the new morality. Sex as a recreational sport, cheapened the marriage bed and no one even knows why we actually were given the gift of making love by God. Yes, God invented sex, not for sport, but as part of real love between one man and one woman who had decided to spend their lives together for the rest of their lives; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health... as long as we both shall live.

What the world offers us today is selfish; it's me first; it's taking and not giving and it's anything but love, so I ask again, what's love got to do with it?

Jesus said this in the Bible:
John 15:12-13
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. NIV

Hmmm... greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Wow! How can a person do that? That sounds like an old archaic thought that just gets a person walked on...

No, actually that's love. There is another place in the Bible where the apostle Paul is addressing the church in Ephesis and he is about to address relationships with husbands and wives, children and parents and even bosses and employees and he says this:

Eph 5:21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. NIV

What? Submit to one another? That must be a misprint right? No, in actuality he's saying Christian, in every relationship you have consider the other person and what they need first and THAT my friend is love. You see, we were not designed to be self-centered, selfish, greedy people. We were designed by our Creator to be giving people. Think for a minute and you will find this to be true, at least I find it to be astoundingly true in my life. I am most unhappy and most dissatisfied with life when I am being selfish and greedy. When I'm being me first, nothing is ever good enough and no one can ever give enough to me to make me happy. Why? Because I was designed by God to think of others first and to do my best to make someone else happy.

If husbands and wives would truly think of the interest of their spouse first and do everything in their power to help their spouse be the best person they could possibly be; if each spouse would put the needs of the other first, we would have real love. You see emotions wear off and fade away. I know it's not as gushy and romantic, but love is a decision. I decided 26 1/2 years ago that I would love Evelyn Solovij for the rest of my life. What? You decided? Yes, I decided and for some reason she decided that she would also love me for the rest of her life and so, it has worked out well for 26 1/2 years and I suspect it will work out as long as we both shall live.

Have we had goose bumps for all those years? Have we been overwhelmed with gushy feelings for all those years. I have to say, off and on we have, but, if depending upon emotions were going to get us through our promise we made to each other at an altar in Tampa, FL in 1982, we would have been divorced years ago. You see our commitment was deeper than our emotions. We decided to give up our lives for one another and we decided that for better or worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health we choose to live with and live for one another as long as we both shall live. We choose to make each other's lives better for as long as we both shall live. We choose to be on each other's side as long as we both shall live. It's something more solid than an emotion. It's a decision. A decision to be committed to the well-being of another for the rest of our lives and it's the best decision I ever made besides surrendering my life to Jesus Christ.

So, I ask you again, what's love got to do with what the world is offering up today? Nothing and it's why most relationships end after just a few years. You know, when I was growing up, if someone said, "I've been married almost 27 years" no one would think anything of it. It was expected. Today, I tell people that I've been married to the same woman for almost 27 years and I can't imagine life without her, people act shocked like we had set some sort of world record. No, it's just that people have forgotten what love is. They think it's a second hand emotion. No. It's a decision that takes moral character and one that takes much selflessness. Sadly, these are two qualities lost on today's narcissistic world. The "me first" generation may never know real love and it's sad. It's sad because we all have the desire for it, but we are being steered in the complete wrong direction. We are being taught me first and do to others before they do it to you. Jesus says submit to one another and do to others as you would have them do to you.

What's love got to do with it? Nothing.

Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend. Greater satisfaction in life has no man than the one who lives out these words of Jesus. Let's not settle for the counterfeit. Let's not have anything less than real love. It's what we were designed by our Creator for.

Until Later,

Don