What's Love Got To Do With It?

Tina Turner once recorded a song lamenting "What's love got to do with it... Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken?" It is just one of a "million" songs questioning whether love is ever really worth the trouble. Perhaps people ask the same question about a relationship with God as well?

God is love. This is His most self-defining trait. It might be helpful for us when we think of God and love to think not so much in terms of "God doing lovely things," but that "Love does godly things." You see, love is something that does indescribable things. Love can work miracles in the lives of people and can bring so much beauty to the world, it is impossible to appreciate it all. Love is a powerful force beyond measure.

God is love and whoever doesn't love like God loves doesn't really know God (1 John 4:8). I think rather than God choosing to love, the powerful reality about God is that He IS love. It is as if he is bound by His own nature and therefore He has to act according to that nature! This is what makes that scripture so powerful when it says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son..."

While I can't prove God didn't "choose" to send His son, I do think it is a powerful thought to consider that God's nature of love is as powerful, if not more powerful, than choice! That is a great thought isn't it? Because that means that if we REALLY love someone, we are going to sacrifice for them almost "instinctively" rather than merely because we "choose" to. Love can be a powerful thing, can't it?

Think of it in terms of salvation in Christ. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). For Jesus to die for us is a mighty strong demonstration of love. I really like the thought that love is more powerful than choice. I'm going to have to spend some more time thinking about that, but I believe it may be true.

The painful part of life is when someone "chooses" not to demonstrate love. Again, thinking in terms of "love doing godly things" that can explain why it hurts so much when someone doesn't "choose" to love us. When someone else injures or abuses us, we have to wonder and ask, "why isn't that person loving me?" That is what makes God's love so incredibly amazing. He is always willing to love without fault! But that reality is also what makes a human being's inability for "loving to do godly things" hurt us so badly when they fail us. We want the love God can give, but get the love (or lack of love) a human chooses to give. That is an incredible "lowering of the bar" from what God has to offer. I mean, find someone who can love you more and more like God loves you and you've really found something!