Learning How to Love

The wife desires time with her husband. He walks in the door from his long day at work; and she greets him with, “You’re always working. You love your job more than me.” In turn, the husband verbally attacks her and quickly walks to the other room. The very thing that she desired, she drove away. The love he needed was left standing at the door. How often in relationships (mates, children, friends, or peers) do we find ourselves drifting apart? …Because we have not learned how to love.

Couples often base love on those romantic feelings that initiated the beginnings of their relationship. When those feelings get buried in work, financial struggles, children, and other things, they often believe that they are falling out of love. Love is not a feeling but a decision. Married couples made covenant “to love for better or worse.” Sometimes marriage may “feel” like “worse.” The business man who made a contract (a covenant) with another business man may not “feel” like keeping his part of the bargain; but he is required to. He “keeps” his word (covenant.)

I John 5;3 says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments (Word): and his commandments are not grievous.” Love is “keeping,” not “feeling.” Psalm 119:165 says, “Great peace have they which love (keep) thy law (Word): and nothing shall offend them.” The Hebrew for “offend” is “they shall have no stumbling block.” If we keep the Word, we will have great peace and no stumbling blocks! So, how does one keep the whole Bible? Jesus summed it up in Mt. 22:37-40, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, if I keep these two commandments, I can keep the Word. I John 5:4 continues to tell us as born-again believers, we overcome this world and the victory that overcomes the world is faith. “Faith worketh by love” (Gal. 5:6).

Jesus told us that a house divided against itself shall not stand (Mt. 12:25). Satan is dividing too many “houses” in his attacks against the family. Even Christians are being taken by his deceptions. What would happen if the husband and wife always chose to “keep” their covenant with one another? If only couples would stop fighting themselves by fighting their mates… Husband and wife are one flesh (Gen. 2:24). In reference to our example in paragraph one, suppose the wife meets the husband at the door with a hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate and asks him to sit down with her for a little while, maybe expressing her desire to be with him. Couples often fail to express their feelings or needs. They just expect their mates to know what they desire, when they probably do not have a clue. Church, let us “love in deed and in truth” (I Jn. 3:18). Let us learn to communicate. Remember, communication takes at least two people communicating.