Welcome back to the Summer of Love, Jesus Style.

 

Here at Pathway, it's all about a healthy, satisfying, life-giving, non-dysfunctional love all summer long.

Here is our key Bible verse for today:
"Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith." (1 Timothy 1:5)

From this verse, I want you to see something. Love flows "from" a certain place. It is the source of love, the headwaters of love, the spring from which love flows.

 

The purpose (or goal, or end zone) of the commandment (which here means all God's truth about what it means to live every day as a child of God) is love (but not just any kind of love; it's love FROM a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere (authentic, genuine) faith.

 

So my talk today is called: Step Up to Mature Love

When you open a faucet and pour a glass of water, the water comes FROM someplace, right? The faucet doesn't make the water. No, the pipes connect to a source, to a bigger source, to an ultimate source. It is water from a lake, or a snowpack, or a glacier brought to you by the faucet.

So when you experience true love, that love comes from somewhere. If you trace it way, way, way back, it comes from God.

But if you trace it back a little way, it comes from a place inside you that God has healed. It comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

That's why we've spoken so much in this series about getting your heart healed and your conscience clear and your faith consistent before God.... You have to do these things for the sake of a love that will last.

So let's look at biblical love from several different angles. They're related, but they're different. And I really think this will help you understand what's going on in your own soul, AND what kind of person you want to be for the sake of love.

 

You may have heard that love is unconditional. In general, yes, love should be unconditional. That means no strings attached. But if you press that statement too far, you end up with a mushy love that has no boundaries, and sometimes hurts more than it helps. So I don't usually phrase it that way.

 

I think it's more biblical to talk about Virtue Love and its cousin, Attraction Love. Then we'll add one more.

Consider for a moment the simple sentence, "I love you." Three words. I don't want to hurt your brain too much, but this sentence has a subject (I), a verb (love), and a direct object (you).

When a person says I love you, the person speaking is the Lover, and the person being spoken to is the Beloved.

So, let me talk about Attraction Love first, then Virtue Love.

Attraction Love. This is the kind of love most people think of when they hear the word love.

With Attraction Love, you love another person because of who he or she is. You are attracted to the other person because of what's in them.

When it is just attraction love, and you say, "I love you," you are actually saying "I love you because..."

You're pretty, handsome, smart, charming, or rich.

I love you because you have power, status, and popularity, and that appeals to me.

I love you because we like the same things, and both cheer for the Chicago Bears, or Niners, or Raiders, or Cubs...

I love you because you dress pretty and have good teeth.

There is something attractive, or cool, or likable about YOU.

The normal New Testament word for Attraction Love is the Greek word "philos."

Philos, philia, and the verb phileo, all refer to this kind of love. It's translated friend, friendship, or love.

Romans 12:10 says, "Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love" and it uses this word twice.

Attraction Love is great; it helps make the world go round. And most of us wouldn't be here unless a man and woman had it at least for a night.

Attraction Love comes in several flavors:

ROMANCE. Attraction love is the little battery pack of romance. Attraction love is what gets us together in the first place.

FRIENDSHIP. You can be friends because you have common interests and shared values. You both like bass fishing. You both like politics. You both serve in the same regiment or force. Whatever it is.

MARRIAGE. Attraction love is an important part of marriage. That you find your partner beautiful, attractive, and a really good person who loves the Lord. When I first saw Margi, I was intrigued by her looks. And the more we got to know each other, I was intrigued by her intelligence, and spirit, and energy, and personality, and heart in addition to her looks. She attracted me, and that's never gone away.

So there are some good things about Attraction Love, and I'm thankful God gave us this kind of love.

But there's a weakness with Attraction Love.

What happens when the qualities that drew you to the other person go away?

What happens when the beauty fades?
What happens when the muscles go soft?
What happens when the interests change, and you don't care about scrapbooking or bass fishing anymore?
What happens when the thing that attracted you goes away?

Is that an excuse to drop your wife or husband to go find a new model?

This is the weakness. Attraction love comes and goes. It's flighty. It's fickle. "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain," says the Bible (Proverbs 31:30).

If your love depends on qualities in the Beloved, and the Beloved happens to change, then what?

Thankfully, attraction love has a backstop: it is our second love today.