The Journey

If you're reading this, I'm going to urge you to stop and instead go read what the Bible has to say on the subject of love. As a culture we have complete desensitized ourselves to its meaning. We do not understand what the word even means. Let me pause here by saying that I'm under no false pretenses that I am an expert in the subject, nor do I find myself in the right here. I'm as guilty as anyone of this love misconception epidemic.
We have robbed ourselves as Christians by losing the meaning of the word love.

Look through Scripture and find an instance when the story goes something like this,
And Jesus said, "God, I love manna. It's so delicious."
And Jesus said, "God, I love hanging out with you guys. You're so cool."
And Jesus said, "OMG I love this song!"

(Now if you notice, I also brought up another one of my pet peeves, which is the improper use of God's name, but that's for another day)

I don't think that we will find any of those phrases in Scripture. Why? Because that's not what the word love means. But I myself have said all three of those things. This week. Well, I said bread, not manna. You get my point.

I've also said, "Lord, I love you."

Ouch. So I love bread. I love hanging out with my friends. I love a song. I love Jesus.

Why in the world would I use a word to describe how I feel about my Savior to also describe bread.

More often than not, what we mean by love is really like or enjoy.

But the word love has become a universal term to show appreciation or enjoyment for something. The reason we cannot define the word love is because it's used for everything.
If we knew what the word truly meant, I think we would be more weary to use it improperly.

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us"

What Paul just said is that love is an agent that drives us to set aside ourselves completely, even to the point of brutal, torturous death for the object of which we love.

And we say we love pizza.

But that's God's love,

you might want to argue, as I did in trying to justify myself. That is true, this is Godly love. But God Himself commands us as Christians to "Be Holy as I am Holy", and to follow the example of Christ. So this is the love that Christ commands us to have.

Do we understand that when we say "Gosh, I love this song", truly we implying that we set aside ourselves completely, even to the point of brutal, torturous death for this song"

In my opinion, the Love Misconception accounts for almost everything that is wrong with the world. People "fall in love", but get divorced after 30 years of marriage. People "make love", but are left with a brokenness. 

This isn't the love the Bible speaks of. And although my mind doesn't even begin to comprehend God's, I would assume that it's a slap in the face to one minute profess our 'love' for pizza, or a song, or even another person, and the next proclaim that same 'love' for YHWH.

If you cannot tell, I am pretty convicted and torn up over this. And because I never want to be a Phariseetian (yes, I made this up), I am going to put action to my words. I am, starting now, going to take a few extra breaths and say that I "really really like" pizza.
If I truly love the Lord, then everything else should look like hate.

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."
(Luke 14)

Obviously Jesus isn't encouraging hatred, but what He is saying is that your love for God should be so immense that everything by comparison looks like hate.

So join me, if the Holy Spirit has so convicted you, to become sensitized to the word love and it's meaning, and see how radically your view of love changes.