Over the past decade or so, marriage and sexual identity definitions have been under attack in our world. And as we rub shoulders with people we all know and love, who’re within the strategy of redefining their sexuality or marriage or possibly even gender, we must each try to seek out a solution to navigate these re-definements.
About fifteen years ago the Christian community began saying this phrase, “God is love,” but now it’s, “Love is love. When you hear the phrase, “Love is love?” what do you hear? Well, here’s what it means to most in our day: “Love is love” is a phrase meaning that the love expressed by a person or couple is valid whatever the sexual orientation or gender identity of their lover or partner.
While I used to be in Europe not too way back, I went to the University of Oxford and toured the historically famous Randolph Hotel. Inside this beautiful hotel was an indication on the welcome desk that said, “We welcome all sexual orientations.” No qualification, no exception, no explanation. Love is love.
See, within the church, when this movement began, Christians at the very least were saying things like, “God is love.”
The subtle movement from “God is love” to “Love is love” shouldn’t be an accident; it’s a progression that at all times occurs when a deception or a lie is at the bottom of the intent. The Devil has used “God is love” to take plenty of Christians down the trail of attempting to be “loving” to people of their lives who, simply speaking, are redefining love.
Now, we drop “God” and just add “love” because the supreme rule of this rule. But love comes from God. 1 John 5:7-8 says:
“Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, because God is love. So, love is an expression or motion defined by God, alone.”
God owns the exclusive rights to like. So, anyone who says, “Love is love,” must return and say, “Does God Almighty define this as love?”
1 John 5:9-10 says:
“In this the love of God was made manifest amongst us, that God sent his only Son into the world, in order that we’d pass though him. In that is love, not that we now have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
This tells us that love is an expression or motion supremely seen through Jesus. If I would like to know what love is, have a look at Jesus’ life and his sacrifice for me. The Savior shows us what love is; sex doesn’t.
That’s because when people say, “Love is love,” what they are literally saying is, “Sex is sex,” which the Bible doesn’t agree with either. That is why the Bible defines acceptable and unacceptable sexual actions and orientations. The point is that this: you will not find love primarily through sex; you’ll only find sex. And if that sex is unacceptable to God, you’ll discover destruction. That is what the Bible teaches in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6.
1 John 5:11 says: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love each other.”
This means love is an expression or an motion motivated by God’s example through Jesus.
I learn learn how to love you by learning how God loves me. My effectiveness of loving you relies upon my effectiveness to know and apply how God loves me. If I do not think God loves me, then that’s going to affect how I treat you.
John concludes his thoughts on love by saying in 1 John 5:12: “No one has ever seen God; if we love each other, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.”
This means love is perfected by God living in us after which through us.
So then, love is Jesus living in us and thru us. Paul gives us a listing of actions and expressions that help us to discover when it’s Christ who resides love through us. He says in 1 Corinthians 13:
” Love is patient and type; love doesn’t envy or boast; it shouldn’t be smug or rude. It doesn’t insist by itself way; it shouldn’t be irritable or resentful; it doesn’t rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the reality.”
Here is a listing of what love is when Jesus resides through us:
- Patient
- Kind
- Does not envy or boast
- Not smug
- Not rude
- Not insistent upon its own way
- Not irritable.
- Not resentful.
- Does not rejoice in wrongdoing
- Rejoices with the reality.
That’s the highest ten of what love is when Jesus lives through you to like others.
What words or phrases are missing in that 1 Corinthians list?
- Sex is love.
- Acceptance is love.
- Live your love.
- Live your truth in love.
- Be completely satisfied for them and what makes them completely satisfied.
- Choose your orientation.
- All orientations are welcome and accepted.
- Don’t let another person define love for you.
- Love is love.
- Do what makes you are feeling good.
Our world has twisted love. Love is essentially the most sacred gift God gives us and Christ modelled it for us. Love without selflessness and sacrifice shouldn’t be love. We learn to like by learning how Christ loves us and loves others through us. Can I encourage you today to rethink your view and understanding of affection and return to the creator, designer, definer, motivator, and example of affection? His name is Jesus.
