The Missing Peace: What Love Really Means

What do you think of when you think of love? Those ooey-gooey feelings between a man and a woman, sloppy kisses, romantic movies and steamy novels? That word love is certainly tossed about as we declare we love our boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife…We love our country…We love our dog…We love ice cream…and the list goes on. When we have sex we call it ‘making love’. But what is love really? Is it just feelings and emotions or is it more?

True love goes so much deeper than those things. John 15:13 declares, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” We have heard the stories and watched the movies when someone jumps in front of a bullet saving the life of another, but laying down his own life, or the person who pushes the child out of the way of an oncoming car, saving the life of the child but losing their own life in the process. Many have laid down their lives for love of their country in wars…”All gave some, some gave all.” Life is our most precious gift. Without it, we cease to exist. It is our last greatest instinct to survive. We will fight to the death just to live another day, another minute…but yet love of the truest, deepest kind will be given to protect those we love. So, yes indeed, love is more than ooey-gooey feelings and it certainly is more than satisfying ourselves.

Is Self-Gratification Love?

We live in a world of self-gratification where society prizes instant, momentary satisfaction, no matter how fleeting or temporary it may be. What most call love is only lust. Lust is always selfish; only true love is selfless. In modern developed countries, where people don’t want for food and shelter and the basic needs of life, it often goes unappreciated and rather than share it with those in need they waste these precious gifts in pursuing comfort upon more comfort.

Yet in the Bible we see what ultimate love looks like through the eyes of our Creator, who is known throughout scriptures as a loving Father, expressed in a loving Son who lays down his life for ungrateful human beings created in the image and likeness of God, not physically but with the capability to express true love to all of creation. Man’s fall did not take God by surprise. This sovereign, all-seeing God could see the future and he knew that if he created man, they would sin against him, disobey his guidance and yet still loved us and made provision for us to have a second chance to love him in return.

Revelation 13:8 explicitly speaks of Jesus as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” referring to Him as the sacrifice designated by God before the universe even existed.
1 Peter 1:18-20 reassures believers that they were redeemed by the “precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” He further notes that Christ “was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you”.
2 Timothy 1:9 states that God “has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.”

He Didn’t Wait Till We Were Good Enough To Love Us

He did not wait till we were good enough to save us. Remember John 15:13? “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” He went one step farther…^”For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Could you lay down your life for someone who doesn’t deserve it, a stranger, maybe even your enemy? Yet that is exactly what he did.

God himself came in the form of a human, Jesus Christ, and preached and exemplified love by bringing a message of hope, healing the sick, feeding the hungry and ultimately, people responded, ‘Crucify him’. Crucifixion was the harshest way of that time to die. It was painful beyond words and humiliating and cruel beyond description. He was beaten to the point that bone was exposed, and he was unrecognizable as a human being because his flesh was so shredded beyond recognition. He was nailed to a cross in such a fashion that the body could not raise itself enough to breathe and ultimately suffocated. He was shamed by hanging him on the cross naked (John 19:23-24, fulfilling Psalms 22:18).

He Loves Us Even When We Fall

Yet God still loved humans even after they crucified him. Did you know that when we fail, God does not condemn; He sees it as a cry for help, an admission that we cannot overcome without Him, and he comes running to our rescue? He doesn’t love us less when we fall; he loves us more. He comes running when we fail, to embrace us and put his arms around us. Like the good father whose son took his inheritance and ran away and wasted all he had been given and came back to the father because he had nowhere else to go, the father did not condemn him but welcomed him back as his son (Luke 15:11-32). Jesus told the parable of the good shepherd who left the 99 sheep to retrieve the one lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7). He loves each and every one of us equally.

None of us deserved mercy or love, but God is love (1 John 4:8) and He could not help but love the most wicked among us. The entire weight of all the sins that ever were committed and ever would be committed was laid upon His shoulders. His blood was sufficient to take care of all the sins of the world.

What should our response be to such love? Romans 5:20 says, “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. Some think that means they can live any way they want, saying grace covers all their sins. That is not of grace and is not what this verse teaches. Romans 6:1-2 deals with this right off. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? “

Love is never performance-based.

If you are in a relationship with someone who is always holding you to some standard, usually one they have invented, and no matter how hard you try, you can never live up to it, you are in a performance-based relationship. It is not love. You can never live up to someone else’s standard. A) It is constantly changing and B) you shouldn’t have to live up to someone else’s standard. Relationships like these are not even meant to have a chance of success. They are meant to control and keep another person in bondage and torment. It is like a cat toying with a mouse. No person should have to live this way. God loved us unconditionally. He loved even the most evil among us so much that He gave His Son, Jesus, so we could have eternal life (John 3:16).

Love is more than sex. Creative Commons Pix4Free

God wants to take us into depths of love we never dreamed possible. Love that goes deeper than our shallow, selfish lust. If we can truly connect with the God who is love, we will see and feel something deeper than any human is capable of. We will look into the eyes of our loved ones and be melted by what we feel. Our hearts will be filled with such compassion for children and the needy that we can’t help but offer kindness and love to them. Only God can give us empathy, that deep longing and feeling for another’s needs to the point that we can’t help but reach out to them on a level we didn’t know was possible. As we live according to God’s instructions and fall in love with him, even our sex lives with our spouse will take on a dimension that is truly ‘making love’ and beyond physical gratification.

God Is Love

God IS love…think about that. He is not just a loving God but he is the very epitome of love. I have experienced times in his presence where I was so overwhelmed by feelings and emotion, yes, but experiencing so much deeper, so indescribable, so satisfying on a level I can’t even explain. I have laughed and I have cried. I have felt arms around me in times of need, worry and fear that comforted me deep down and gave me a peace that was beyond understanding (Philippians 4:7). I have been in a storm thrown at me by life’s circumstances and instead of fear and dread felt like I was in a fortress that could not fail. As David expressed in Psalms 23, he prepared a table before me in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death and gave me the peace of sitting beside still waters, though my enemies surrounded me. He kept my enemies at bay. He kept my worries and fears from driving me mad. His love is all-powerful and meets every need on every level, no matter what you are going through.

I was raised up in a church where God was just an angry old gray-haired man on a throne, just waiting for you to screw up so he could throw a lightning bolt at you and send you straight to hell. The way that preacher preached made me think they had a sliding board straight to hell; he just wanted to push me down with a gleam in his eye. Maybe some of you did too. It has only been in the last few years that I have experienced a God of love and compassion who wants me to succeed, who wants to welcome me to his heaven one day so he can have me close by his side forever. He has even said, It’s not his will that anyone should perish (2 Peter 3:9). He calls all with arms open wide and beckons ALL to repentance, eager to welcome them to his love and embrace. I don’t know who you are or what you are and I don’t care…and he doesn’t either. I would like to ask you all one question: ‘Have you experienced God’s love?’ You can. Just call on him and he will not reject you (John 6:37). He is the missing piece…He is the missing peace.