As I’m writing this, Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. I have a pretty good prediction of what is going to happen. Tomorrow millions of people are going to be sharing a special day or moment with someone they love and care for. And millions of other people are going to be writing Facebook statuses and tweeting about how they don’t need love and how much Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, and how their greatest date is with Ben & Jerry’s and so on. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year!
But amongst all the festivities or anti-festivities that will be happening, I wonder how many people will really be fully appreciating the true meaning of that 4-letter word being spouted about everywhere.
The truth is that while love can be pretty and flowery and romantic at times, that’s not all it is. Or even most of what love is, for that matter. In fact, I would argue that one of the best definitions – or at least certainly one of the best indicators – of true love is…death.
Love is gonna kill you.
And here’s why:
Love is selfless.
True love is not about what we gain from it. It’s about what we give to it. And we have to be careful with this. Because sometimes we may be secretly thinking about how what we’re doing for someone else is going to positively affect us. Let’s be honest, that’ll be in the back of at least some men’s heads tomorrow. But the idea with true love is that we move to the point of thinking of the other’s needs first and foremost.
1 John 4:9 “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.”
Love is sacrificial.
The greatest example, as you can tell that we’re using here, is that of Jesus. God is love and He demonstrated that love with flying colors by sending Jesus from heaven to earth to lay His sinless life down for our sinful ones. It was the most sacrificial thing He could do. And our love is most accurately called love when it is being truly sacrificial. I’ve seen my parents give up on things they wanted to do because of their love for each other. Our world tends to think that if the person loves you that they won’t make you sacrifice anything to love them back, but that’s a load of crap.
John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Love starts.
Love is patient but it’s not passive. Love is active in its pursuit of the beloved. And so Love Does, as Bob Goff is insisting in his recent New York Times bestseller. Real love doesn’t wait for the other person to make the first move. It is risky and adventurous. It moves forward first and sets things in motion. We can’t wait for others to love us well, we should love well first. After all, we’re not even the first anyway!
1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”
It’s perfectly alright and probably rather good for us to celebrate love. So don’t get all bent out of shape if you’re not in the spot relationally that you wish you were in. Love is more than just romance. Love is death and anyone can do that. And quite frankly, each of us would be a whole lot better off if we did.