love

Now, if we seek to be Christian, we must emulate the life and understanding of Christ. Having simply the account of His life, without understanding it, or His actions, is nearly useless. It is the understanding of the implications of scripture that will guide us through principles, not simply the reading of it. That is why we are instructed to 'meditate' on it daily. As an example of the difference between simply seeing the actions or life of Christ, and understanding their implications, let me offer this...
Christ is renowned for His willingness to break the Sabbath. In Biblical Israel, this amounts to breaking the law. It would be like you running a red-light with no regard to the normal traffic law. To see this, and to observe the life of Christ, without having 'understanding' of the principle behind the actions of Jesus, the Christian's attempt to take on the 'life of Christ' may quite logically result in the presumption that it is permissible to break laws with little or no regard. This is a simplified example, but is often the case with people who seek only the 'knowledge' of Christ instead of the 'understanding' of what lies behind His actions and words. The facts are misleading without the understanding to temper them.
The understanding that Jesus is setting the Jews free from a stifling spiritual legality that has become their God is the principle behind the facts. That Jesus came to free from the law and to offer a new way of life and, most importantly love, instead of the cold stricture of a code of laws is some of the understanding behind His actions. Without this type of understanding to guide our walk and our very life, we fall short of reaching the nature of Christ, or of even traveling down the right road to find it
Perhaps there is no greater, or more fundamental area where this understanding is required, than that of love. Love is the most fundamental of Christian, or even God-centered concepts. Love is the very motivating concept behind the works of Jehovah. In the ever familiar verse of John 3:16, we see that it is God's love that motivates Him to purchase us with the very blood of His son. It is by His love for the Father and man that Christ lived 33 years of His life for someone else, and not only lived His life, but gave it up. God is love. The two foremost commandments are, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the foundation upon which all the law and the prophets stand (Mat 22:37-40)
Love is the very foundation of who God is, and love is the very foundation of the life of Christ. How then could we live as Christ lived without an accurate understanding of what love is and how it works? Just what does love require of us? How important is it? How do you truly love? How do you know if you are in love? What is the difference among the types of love? Can you control love? Is it an emotion? Do you fall in love 'just because,' or are there reasons? What happens when love fades, and how do you deal with it? What is real love? What is true love? What is the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone? How do you make a marriage successful? How do we live a victorious Christian life? Who should I love? What if I fall out of love?
All these questions are tied into the idea of love. All of them are answered by a true understanding of what love is. So many of the complicated and complex things in life are really very simple. We make them complicated because of our ignorance. We complicate our life with our misunderstanding of this most basic concept. Love is a part of every person's life, whether they are aware of it or not. Often they are not aware of it because they are still ignorant of what love is. Understanding love with clarity is a revelation and a revolution to modern society. People do not expect to understand love, they have never understood it, and so don't really think they can. People make it out to be a nebulous, mysterious, all-powerful fog that envelops people at random and obscures reason and truth in a haze of emotion. They see it as a big confusion, something that clouds judgement, and requires us to make big, important decisions. They idealize it as butterflies in the stomach and overwhelming feelings. Look at what people say about love, and you will understand how misunderstood love truly is. Love is not ephemeral, love is not mercurial, love is not obscuring, love is not vague, love is not whimsical, love is not a tightening of the chest, or butterflies in the stomach. With so many ideals, it is easier to explain what they are not, but with love, I think that it is more appropriate to explain what it is - because it is so simple.
We have fooled ourselves for so long about what love is, that now we do not even recognize it. We reject true love in favor of what our society and individuals have come to see as 'love.' Our downfall in this area probably came about with good intentions. We have so romanticized the concept of love that we now reject the true for the emotional imitation. Our society is so primarily based on feelings and emotion that we have trouble reconciling anything that we do not feel as real. We are so hung-up on feeling things that the real loses its effect if it is not grounded in feelings, or emotions. We, as a society, and as individuals, are motivated by feelings, by emotions. They are what move us to action. They are what strengthen our will, fill us, push us to perform, cause us to do things we never would do otherwise. We have come to lead emotion based lives that streak with meteoric speed and power from place to place with little rational or principled control. And so we have romanticized the truest and most powerful of motivators (love), and by that I mean it has come to be based on feelings and emotion, so that it becomes a mockery, and a shadow-play of what it truly is. We have taken one of God's main attributes, and His greatest gift to us, and wrenched it out of place and meaning in our human ignorance. Our society and selfish reasoning has allowed it to exist this way for far too long.

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The Silk Rose of Love

The modern view of love has been so commercialized and influenced by romantics and humanists that it is now a pre-packaged perfection. It is a nice, warm fuzzy thing. In a generation when a rose has come to represent love, a more accurate representation would be three bloody nails. It is easy to forget what love is when our very environment presents a perfume and candy representation. A wild rose would be a better picture of love than the sweetness and light that we have come to expect. Thorns are part of the rose of love. Anytime you grasp love, you WILL be pricked and bleed. Christ grasped the rose of love, and He was pricked and He bled for that love. Love is beautiful, but love is hard, and you go into loving knowing that you are sacrificing yourself to be hurt.
It is not that love is just for pain, but to love another person is to ensure that you will be hurt. Love itself is a sacrifice. People are imperfect, and can not help but cause you trouble. When you love someone and they do something that violates your expectations, because you care for them, it will hurt you. It is precisely BECAUSE you love that it will hurt. If you had no care for them, then it would not bother you if they did not exist within the expectations that you have of them. It is the very act of loving that makes you vulnerable to betrayal and pain because people are imperfect. Part of that responsibility is on the one who loves as well. Our unrealistic, and often wrong expectations are frequently the source of our pain. We can have the wrong expectations of God, and when He does not live up to our expectations by giving us what we want, or by leading us into a trial to perfect our faith, we are hurt. We feel betrayed and wronged. "If He loved me, why would He...?" the very act of loving is to make yourself vulnerable to the expectations and actions of another, whether that other be human or divine. So it is often our own misconceptions of love that causes our wounds.
When I said above that you go into love knowing that you are sacrificing yourself to be hurt, it is true, even though the one you love does not always intend to, or is even aware of the pain they cause. Love is a sacrifice of self. The very nature of the concept of love is that of sacrifice and of submitting yourself to be vulnerable, to be effected by another. You are not just sacrificing yourself to be hurt though, you are also sacrificing in large part, your own desires, your will, your self-sufficiency. You are making a commitment to many things, none of which includes the purposeful betterment of yourself. Every one of them requires a sacrifice on your part. Before we get too far into this though, let me say that there are no exceptions to this. None of this is dependant upon anything. It is not dependant on an expression of love, or who you love, or what kind of love, it is the very character and nature of love itself.
There is nothing about love that is easy. Every part of love requires a sacrifice of self. That contrasts harshly with the modern, romantic concept of love. Before I make it sound as if love is sadomasochistic though, let me assure you that loving does bring satisfaction in a most basic and fundamental way to your spiritual self. Even when your love is not returned, there is still a satisfaction in truly loving, because you have given yourself away, and when you are loving, the one you are loving is blessed, and you are blessed through that. You are following the example and the life of Christ in giving selflessly to another, caring for their needs and desires over your own. As illogical as that is, it is a spiritual law, that there is a blessing in that, and it is satisfying in a deep way, though as humans, we can not seem to live long with only that satisfaction. We are selfish beings at heart, and want more than the happiness of another. (It is more blessed to give than to receive: VERSE?)
Back to the modern concept of love... It has come to be seen as so much of a glowing, romantic ideal that we have removed all the thorns from our concept of love, but in so doing have also taken away its scent, and it's softness, and the very LIFE that flowed within it, until all imperfections, and all realness is gone. All that is left now is nothing but a silk rose. It looks beautiful, and it shouldn't ever fade or grow less, but it is not real, it is not alive, it is not love. We have carried this misconception into almost every part of our lives. Marriage is based on love, but if the concept of love is faulty, then the marriage is in danger. Our relationship with God is based on love, but if our concept of love is faulty, then our relationship with God will be shaky. Our relationships with the people around us is based on love, but if our concept of love is faulty, then how effective can those relationships ever be? Our everyday relationships are not quite as dangerous as our intimate relationships. The ones that most suffer from our misconception of love are our spouse, and our God, because these two involve a high degree of intimacy and sacrifice.
The modern concept of love is based so much upon feelings and emotions that a side product has become the main product that people are purchasing. When love is based on emotions, feelings, perceptions of feelings, you have purchased a silk rose that looks like love, and feels like love, but it is not alive, it will never grow. Without growth, there is no change, there is nothing but death in store. The concept of love being based on how you feel or what you feel is the result of a selfish society attempting to create an ideal that brings pleasure to the one experiencing it, while granting the ability and excuse to leave behind all the things that are not pleasing. It has come to be based on a selfish flow of emotion, an unprincipled feeling that is ephemeral and about as valuable and true as the clouds drifting aimlessly and pointlessly in the sky.
In evidence, we can take a look at the divorce rate. People purchase a silk rose, thinking that they are purchasing love, but soon they find that what they purchased was a cup of water with a hole in the bottom. It only quenches their thirst for a little while, and then when it is gone any number of excuses arise allowing them to begin searching for another selfish desire - something to fill them again, something that makes them feel good - feel in love. They blame the failure of the relationship on the person that they said they loved. They blame it on the loss of love. "I just don't love you anymore." They lose the emotions, the feelings. They lose what they bought, what they thought was love. They thought that love was based on those feelings and when they are gone. When they no longer 'feel in love' they are under the illusion that they have lost the love, when in reality, the illusions was that that ever had love to begin with. Or, two people marry under the 'Knight in shining armor/Sleeping virgin princess' illusion. They have the idea that they will find someone who is perfect for them that will make loving and living together easier. They are missing the whole concept of love. How easy is it for God to live with us, so to speak? How 'compatible' are we with Him? Does it matter? There is something in us that He sees as worth loving, and so makes the sacrifices necessary because of that love. He is the example of true love ,and the model we must follow. When you love someone, you make the sacrifices that love requires, knowing that it is worth it. The people who are looking for the perfect 'someone' think that they have found that person and marry with the expectation that they will have less trouble than someone else because they are compatible - because they have found their Mr. or Mrs. Right. Of course people are more or less compatible depending on the similarities in their ways of thinking, but compatibility is really a very small issue when dealing with love. Whether perfectly compatible or not, everything falls apart again if they do not truly understand love because there is no Mr. Right. There is no sleeping princess. People are people. Some have less annoying habits than others, some may like more of the things you like, or look like you want them to, but love does not depend on that. Those things simply make it easier to have fun together. Those issues have no bearing on love, and thus have no bearing on a marriage that is based on love. The issue of compatibility is irrelevant if love is misunderstood. If marriage is based on personality, then once again it will be a failure. Love is always hard work, and is always a sacrifice, regardless of how similar or different two people are. The things that you love in someone are not personality traits. Those things change. The things you love in a person are not the things they do to you or for you, those things will change daily. What you love in someone is the totality of their self. Their character. That is what you base decisions of love upon. You love everyone, but the two deepest implications of love in your life, your spouse and your God, are based on character. When you sacrifice that much autonomy and vulnerability, and (let's face it) control to someone else, the issue is the character of the one you are giving it all to. In the case of God, we are safe. He is the perfect, loving father who brings us only good. He is all knowing and all powerful, and has plans to prosper and not to harm you. He is trustworthy. He is consistent, He is loving, He is gentle, He is encouragement, He provides strength, He promotes growth, He loves at all times, He always has your best in mind, He sees the wonderful things in you. He is forgiving. He is merciful. He is jealous. He is fair. He is compassionate. He is passionate. These are all character traits, not personality or compatibility issues, and the one you marry should fill those same character requirements to a lesser (human) extent. These are core issues. Things that arise from who a person truly is. What they are like in all times. Personality, compatibility, is fluid. It changes and rearranges as we go through life, circumstances, moods, etc. Personality, likes, dislikes, general social issues, all of these are things that we are constantly changing and building or destroying. They are like emotions, constantly in flux, and really of very little concern when it comes to love and to who a person really is. To base love on these things is folly. It is like someone’s looks being the foundation of the relationship. All these things change in time. Constantly. What we must search for in a potential mate, and even in out most intimate friends is character. Character is the thing that does not change, en large, with the passing of years, or with the circumstances that you find yourself in.

The Spice of Love

So many in this time and society have given in to the "romantization" of love, if you will allow me to create my own word. As we saw in the Silk Rose of Love, the whole concept of love has come to be a glowing picture of romance, candy, flowers, and perfume - kissing, holding hands, dreamy eyes, and glowing plans for the future. Love has become an aphrodisiac. I think it is profitable to give the refutation of this idea its own section. The two concepts that are at war within society, seem to have merged into a single concept that has blinded us to the true nature of love, and to some extent, to God Himself. Most people are not even aware of the conflict being waged between truth and deception. It seems that as a society, we have slipped into the deception of a love based on our romantic concepts and glowing ideals. When the reality of love could not be farther from the truth. Not only has our romanticized concept of love allowed deception and inaccuracy to slip in, but it has largely displaced the truth to such a degree that when presented with the true concept of love, it is such a revolution to our thinking and our actions, that we simply can not accept such a foreign idea.
Not only have we so associated romance with love that the two are inseparable, we have replaced the true concept of love with romance, when in fact, romance has nothing to do with love itself. As we take a look at what love truly is, we will see that the two are not only separate concepts, but one has nothing to do with the other.
To look at it in a practical light, love is a meal. It is something that sustains us, it is the main course of life, it is what is important. Romance, is simply a spice. It may make the meal taste better, or just different in some small way, but it is by no means a substantial part of the meal. Its only function is to add taste to the meal itself. If love is chicken and romance is Oregano, is Oregano part of the chicken itself? No, it is something added simply as a matter of taste. Just as romance relates to love, just as there are as many different concepts of taste, and which spices to add, so there are as many different concepts of romance. But today's ideas have made the spice the main course of the meal. We have pushed the chicken away and are trying to subsist on Oregano, and as will happen to someone trying to live on spices, they will starve, get sick, and die. So our society, our homes, our spouses, our children, and our hearts are starving for love. Starving because we have confused the spice for the real meat itself, and are trying to live on it. And just as with a spice, if it is all you eat, it not only sickens you, it gets old very quickly.
Romance itself is built on circumstance and emotion. And as we have already discussed in a round-about way, emotions and circumstance are unreliable in the extreme, and life nor love can be based on such inconsistencies. Romance can be created between any two people under the right circumstances. Romance need not have anything to do with truth. Romance is created with mystery and the correct phrasing, timing, and atmosphere. There is a vast difference between someone saying "your eyes are blue," and "I could get lost in the exquisite azure depths of your soul," or even more simply, "your eyes are such a wonderful, beautiful blue." All three of these things are relating a truth, which is, "your eyes are blue." The first can be said while discussing the relative advantages of whether to file the short or long form for this year's taxes. A mood of romance would hardly be created. However, the second and third, if said in candlelight, or while staring raptly into the eyes in question, could conceivably create a mood of romance. The first is stating a simple fact of truth. The ones that followed were less direct, and more aimed to saying what the other person would probably like to hear. The phrasing, timing, and atmosphere have nothing to do with truth, or making the statement any more true or real. It simply adds an emotional excitement to the truth that already existed. Conversely, someone could say those things and it not be true, and create the same mood of romance. Love is truth. It is based on sacrifice and honesty. Romance has nothing to do with it, just as the particular mood or phrasing of the above statements had nothing to do with making them real or true. Romance is based on encouraging someone to feel a certain way. Love on the other hand, is based on thinking and behaving a certain way toward someone. Romance is not an integral part of love (though under certain conditions that I discuss later, it is a very important part of a relationship), neither is love part of romance. They are two completely different concepts, what is more, romance is worthless in itself. It is quite possible to have romantic feelings where love is absent. One might guess that a high number of 50% of relationships in fact, are based on romance, hence an approximate 50% divorce rate. Romance without love is a deception - a deception that ruins lives. It is based on feelings and circumstances. It has nothing to do with love. It is merely a spice. It has no value in itself. It merely exists to add some small extra taste to the truth of love.
As a majority, we tend to seek romance instead of love. We want the feelings, the circumstances, the glowing ideals, the sweet words, the flowers and candy, the warm butterflies in the stomach. We want the ideal, our prince charming, or beautiful princess. Why do we seek such foolish ephemeral things instead of what is truly important? Because we do not seek love. We seek a self-pleasing emotional high. We desire something to stimulate us, to feed us, to make us feel good. We seek selfishly for what pleases us. It is not wrong to want these things, just as it is not wrong to want chocolate or nice clothes, but when this is what we seek over the things that are important and true, then we are begging disaster. God desires for us to be happy and satisfied, but when our happiness and satisfaction is dependant upon such trivial things, then our focus is not on Him or the things of Him. When we seek certain characteristics in a person instead of character, we have abandoned truth and what is profitable for what is deceptive and self-pleasing.
Love and the governing principles of our life must be based on absolutes, on principles, not on the whimsical flow of emotions or ever changing circumstances. Of all the traits of love mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13, not a single one of them is designed to bring about the pleasure of the person loving. Love is not designed to please yourself. Every one of the things mentioned in 1 Corinthians is a struggle, a sacrifice, and a trial of strength and character of the person loving. God's unfailing love for us gains Him heartache and betrayal aplenty. He does not love us for what it gets Him. His love is not selfish. As difficult a concept as this is to understand, it must be so. God does not need our love. He gains nothing from it. To insist that God gains something from our love is to imply that He is not perfect. A being that is perfect has no need of anything. To think that we make God better off in some way is to deny His perfect, internal sufficiency. All that we can bring to Him is our need. That is the only thing that we can offer a being who is perfect in Himself, who has no need of anything. Instead, His pleasure is gotten from giving of His perfect love, and perhaps our intent to love. It is ironic that we can not even love Him without His love being placed within us. His example of love is the one we must follow. Our love should not be based on meeting our own needs or desires, but on placing the needs of another before our self. This is what Paul is writing about in 1 Corinthians, near the end of chapter 13. Though we see through a glass darkly, we can glimpse a silhouette of what love truly is. We can attempt to copy it, and live it as a human, as a pale reflection of the example that Jesus has provided, but not until we reach heaven and get our new selves, will it be perfected in us.
It is worth mentioning here that romance is not to be despised for its deceptive nature. It is no different than emotions, for that is truly what it is and what it is based upon, and neither should we despise our emotions for their flighty and often deceptive nature. Romance, like emotions are amoral. They contain no morality in themselves. They are neither right nor wrong, but what we do with them makes them profitable or unprofitable. Romance, like emotions, has its proper place within courtship. One must be careful, for only under one circumstance, and one only, is romance profitable and right. That one circumstance is when love is already present. It is difficult for us as humans to determine that our love is based on the right things when emotion is involved. Emotions pull us without logic or justification. They are like a river, inexorable and seasonal. Emotions are like any force of nature, they are there, they are beautiful and scary and destructive or gentle and soothing, but you can not rely on them. The intellect provides morality, ethics, the distinction between right and wrong. Emotions change regardless of your intent, just like nature. When someone applies the fire to the gasoline, it doesn't matter how much you don't want it to blow up, it will, and regardless of how much you may want to keep the fire burning, once it has burned all the fuel, it goes out.
To think of the human soul as an automobile may add a distinctive understanding of emotion and intellect. Loving someone is more a mental state than an emotional one. If we are honest with ourselves, it is most often emotions that motivate us as humans. They are the engine of our lives, they are what move us, and get us places. They propel us into motion. Our thoughts are the steering wheel. Depending on where we turn them, that is where the car goes. If we turn our thoughts to good things, to positive things, then we steer our emotions to take us to a positive place. Our feelings, just like the car, will end up in a place that we want to be; the place that WE guide them to. But who can blame the car for taking them into a dark, gloomy part of town, when they are the one turning the steering wheel? Or how can we complain that we just feel too strongly about someone to give them up, or even taking the opposite side, that even though someone has all the character that we admire and know is important, we simply have no "attraction" to them, or "Feelings" for them? This leads to the conclusion that emotions are largely irrelevant in the way we process information and make decisions. This does not imply that emotions have no value, they have a lot of value. They are the spice that adds so much to lie, but as such, are largely irrelevant. Would we release the steering wheel and allow the engine (motivator) to lead the car? No. Yet we do this consistently and act surprised when things get out of hand, or when we find that our feelings have gotten away from us. So then how do we control our emotions? Our thoughts lead and determine our emotions. The stability and consistency of our thought life is what determines the stability and consistency of our emotions as well. This is a revelation and a revolution to so many people. There is a way to maintain emotional and mental stability regardless of history, or present circumstances. There is a way to have a healthy relationship even if you've never had one before. Your whole life, and your wellbeing, in so many ways, depends upon your thoughts; what you think on a practical, day to day, moment to moment level. It begins with the practical, mundane thoughts and extends into the massive, ephemeral areas of emotions, depression, mental stability, emotional stability, spiritual stability, stress, contentment, faith, belief, love, and finally to reality, because to us reality is based on what we believe. To use a quasi-quote from one of my favorite movies, 'Sneakers.' Posit: People think a bank is financially shaky. Result: People begin to withdraw their money. Reality: Soon the bank is financially shaky. Whether in reality the bank was financially shaky or not in the beginning is irrelevant because people believed that it even might be, and their belief made it reality-because we live and act according to what we believe. Posit2: You think the relationship you are in is shaky. Result: You begin to doubt the relationship. You withdraw. Reality: Soon the relationship you are in is shaky. It goes the same way with emotions. Our thoughts determine what we feel, and our thoughts and feelings determine what we believe, and soon what we believe determines our reality. If you believe and think in a practical way that I Corinthians 13 is true, and that love never fails, then as a practical result of that, if you believe that you love someone, then you are willing to do whatever it takes to make that relationship successful, because you know that if you operate in love, that love will never fail, so you always have hope, thus, just from the fact that you think that, you are willing to do whatever it takes because you know you can not fail as long as you follow love, and because of that very fact, you will not fail. However, if your thought process encompasses anything besides that promise, you will relate your beliefs to circumstances and your thoughts will be shaped by the difficulties you face and by what you know as your limitations and so will become despondent and expectant of failure, and will not be operating in love, which is the belief that love never fails and so you will fail. Your belief will become reality. Will a man or woman put up with trials and heartaches for years if he does not truly believe that love will win through in the end? Probably not. But when she believes that love will never fail and that in the end it will triumph, then she can continue on in hardship and heartache.
When you believe that you love someone and will do anything because you know it will work the way God intends it to and will never forsake that, then you DO anything in takes because you know in your heart it will work, and that is ALL it takes for it to REALLY work (if both understand that and have that attitude). We are not responsible for any of the circumstances in life, but we are 100% responsible for what we think and be and do, and THAT is what a relationship is 100% based on, what WE choose to be and do. It is not in the hands of circumstance or situation or anything not COMPLETELY in control of the two individuals that it is made up of. God says love never fails and if both are committed to loving and have the understanding and character to love, then their love NEVER WILL FAIL because they refuse to question it. Life and love and belief work on what you make them to be inside yourself. When you know a principle of God, it is the very refusal to question it that makes it work. That is, in one respect, what faith is all about and why faith makes things ok, because it makes things real. People who 'wait' to see if things work out, aren't MAKING them work out, they're leaving it to something other than God's principles and what they choose (circumstance whether that is personality or situation). They don't know if what they want is what is there before them, and they are not committed to it, and are not dedicated to, and do not value it enough to make it work the way God intends for it to, and the way He promises it will, if both follow His principles.
We HAVE to have a principle based thought perspective as opposed to circumstantial, or we run into all kinds of trouble in life. Without relying entirely on principle it's impossible to have true integrity, or even consistency, and certainly not love. People who say "I think one thing one day and another thing the next, or I want it today but I don't know about tomorrow. I can't promise how I'll feel years down the road, or I just can't help the way I feel," tell me that their perspective is not principle based, it is situational. They lack a principle based way of thinking and are double minded and unstable. But the one seeks the principles of God and decides to commit to them fully - or not at all, those are people to rely on. It seems very extreme and frightening, but that is because we are so unused to principle based living and thinking. Principle based love is so uncommon and rare because our society, and largely our way of relating to the world is the opposite of principle and integrity. We are so cautious and careful because we look at circumstances and seasons and feelings. Take Peter on the water as an example. He did not question Christ, or his commitment to walk out to Him on the water, and so he could. His belief (which is faith) made it possible through God's power, but the MOMENT he questioned it and took his eyes off that faith and the belief that it WOULD work, despite the seeming impossibility and the circumstances surrounding him, he began to sink. Love is the same way. His questioning that it WOULD work is what caused it to begin to fail. If he had never doubted it, he would have gone on doing the impossible and reached the one he loved more than anything. Alas, he questioned his commitment to be there, to be defying reality and proceeding to do the impossible. He doubted that it WOULD work and never to look back. His very stubborn belief and commitment in it is what made him be able to accomplish it through God's power. When Peter began to sink, God's power never faltered or grew less, it was Peter's belief that grew less and so his belief determined his reality, and that doubt caused it to fail. Love works much in the same manner. When we believe in it and operate in it as a principle, not as something circumstantially or emotionally based, it does not fail. Our very refusal to doubt it is what makes it true. What you truly believe is SO important, it causes so many things to succeed or fail in your life. As God says through James, ask believing without doubting, and He will supply us with His wisdom. But the doubting man will receive nothing. Belief determines reality, not the other way around. Reality should not determine belief. Once you find true reality in who God is.
If love is not present prior to romance, it is difficult to determine whether your love is pure, or whether it is an emotionally inspired feeling. Just as a husband and wife should be friends before they move farther into intimacy because if they are not certain that they can be close and interact with one another on a basis of friendship, then they will be very surprised when the romance and newness of their relationship has worn off and there is not a foundation of friendship there to build a life upon. So too with romance. If the love is not present before the feelings or romance, then what happens when the romance is gone and there is no foundation or basis for a relationship without the emotions and romance?
It may be profitable at this point to examine a little bit about emotions as they interact with intellect and the will. People find themselves on a roller coaster. Everyone goes through ups and downs. Therefore they may find a problem maintaining spiritual, emotional, and mental consistency. The solution to this is a one part. The key to mental stability and integrity is in controlling your thoughts. One of my favorite axioms is "You can't stop a crow from flying over your head, but you can keep it from building a nest in your hair." Thoughts will come with or without your permission or control. How you choose to react to those thoughts once they have passed into your mind determines much. If you choose to accept and dwell upon a thought, then you have changed yourself. It is important to realize that anything short of 'rejecting' a thought and thinking contrary to it, is accepting it. You can intellectually reject it and realize that it isn't true (or unhealthy), but if you do not take mental action to get it out of your head, and think thoughts that are in opposition to it, then you will end up in the same place that you would be had you accepted it, it will simply take longer. To control your thoughts is the key to mental stability. This kind of near-militant acceptance and rejecting of what will dwell in your mind is the only thing that provides a healthy thought life and a firm grip on reality. To allow a poison (a delusive, unhealthy thought) to dwell in your mind, infects every part of your view and philosophy of life, and through that, your actions and lifestyle become affected because our thoughts are what determine how we act and react.
The problem with having an unpredictable, or undisciplined thought life is that it doesn't stop in our head. Our thoughts, and our way of thinking determine our emotions as well. The correlation from thought to emotion is a very subtle one usually, but it IS a direct correlation. What you think determines how you feel. That is why romance is such an important part of a relationship between husband and wife (after love has been established). Romantic situations cause a certain type of thoughts, the mood and ambiance changes how we think about the situation, the person, and then the relationship as a whole. And those thoughts translate into feelings. To allow your self to focus on negative aspects of a situation, person, or a relationship very quickly translates into negative feelings. Focusing on the positive, or even just making yourself think about the positive sides of these things, translates into positive emotions. If we are honest with ourselves, it is most often emotions that motivate us as humans. They are the engine of our lives, they are what move us, and get us places. They propel us into motion. Our thoughts are the steering wheel. Depending on where we turn them, that is where the car goes. If we turn our thoughts to good things, to positive things, then we steer our emotions to take us to a positive place. Our feelings, just like the car, will end up in a place that we want to be. But who can blame the car for taking them into a dark, gloomy part of town, when they are the one turning the steering wheel? Our thoughts lead and determine our emotions. The stability and consistency of our thoughts is what determines the stability and consistency of our emotions as well. Thus, during a lifetime love relationship, as with God and our spouse, it is very important to control our thoughts. To choose what we think about and dwell upon, because that is what determines the nature of our emotions, and emotions are a very powerful force in our lives. So after marriage, we do use romance and emotions to uphold and add spice to the time that we spend with our partner
To make the case even more important, our spiritual health is based almost solely on our emotional health. As humans, we can operate outside of the emotional realm, but we do so with trepidation because we have come to rely upon them so much to tell us what is real. We need to 'feel' God. We need to 'feel' His love and peace. So much of our spiritual health and consistency is based on emotions. Often we don't feel worthy of being God's children, so we avoid Him. We don't approach Him boldly as His beloved ones. Often we don't feel the love we should have for Him and so we let our relationship fall to the side. So if our spiritual motivation is mostly reliant on our emotional health and motivation, and our emotions and attitudes are based upon our thoughts, then suddenly the key to emotional, and spiritual health becomes our thought life. The key to relationships and consistent love, the key to attitudes and emotional health, the key to consistency in our relationship with God, the key to maintaining a marriage and true love, lies in the habits of our thoughts; what we think, what we dwell on.
This is a revelation and a revolution to so many people. There is a way to maintain emotional and mental stability regardless of history, or present circumstances. There is a way to have a healthy relationship even if you've never had one before. Your whole life, and your well being, in so many ways, depends on your thoughts. What you think on a practical, day to day, moment to moment level. It begins with the practical, mundane thoughts and extends into the massive, ephemeral areas of emotion, depression, mental stability, emotional stability, spiritual stability, stress, contentment, faith, belief, and finally to reality. Because reality is based on what we believe in. To use a quasi-quote from one of my favorite movies, 'Sneakers.' Posit: People think a bank is financially shaky. Result: People begin to withdraw their money. Reality: Soon the bank is financially shaky. Whether in reality the bank was financially shaky in the beginning is irrelevant because people believed that it even might be, and their belief made it reality-because we live and act according to what we believe. The thought that the bank might be shaky translated into a feeling, probably fear or anxiety, and that translated into an action. Posit2: You think the relationship you are in is shaky. Result: You begin to doubt the relationship. You withdraw. Reality: Soon the relationship you are in is shaky. It goes the same way with emotions. Our thoughts determine what we feel, and our thoughts and feelings determine what we believe, and soon what we believe determines how we act, which affects our reality. Thus, we must control our emotions by controlling our thoughts. Romance has only this small part to play in life - as a support element of a life long love relationship.

The Seed of Love

Coming from the realization of the limited circumstances in which romance is appropriate, and realizing that a relationship with romance in the foundation is perilous, we come to the idea of finding the beginning of a potential marriage relationship. The foundation of anything is arguably the most important part of the structure. If the foundation shifts, then any structure built upon it will shift as well. This means that the structure will lack integrity. It will be shaky and will eventually collapse. It will lack sturdiness and permanence. There are few things that are more shifting than emotions, and emotions and circumstance are the basis of romance. Two such unstable things can have no part of the foundation of a relationship. It does no good if three of the corners of a house are founded on stone, if the fourth corner is on sand. The structure is still unstable. This is unfortunately the case due to the tendency of emotions to magnify things. When a man comes in from work and a horrible day, we see an example. The air conditioner at the office was broken, so he sat in a sweltering 90 degree heat all day. His computer ate his monthly reports, and his project manager quit, leaving him to organize several projects at once. He arrives home and his emotions are heated. He comes in the door and his son has left his baseball glove on the living room floor. The man grows furious and yells at his son. Normally, we can presume that a carelessly dropped baseball glove would not elicit such a heated response, and the problem is not really his son leaving the glove on the floor. It is a trivial thing, yet because of his emotional state, the man's perception was exaggerated. Our emotions do this in a similar fashion when it comes to relationships, both in this manner and in reverse. Because of our emotions, we may see things as worse, or more troubling, than they truly are. More importantly, our emotions may exaggerate the good things as well. People who are often 'in love,' when asked to tell what it is that they love about their partner, have a hard time finding substantial answers. Romance and emotions will paint a glowing picture that leaves us with a 'feeling' of safety, solidity, and of being with a wonderful person, when in reality, this may be far from the truth. Those misconceptions mentioned at the beginning “like, love is ephemeral,” “it clouds your thinking,” “it makes the world seem all roses,” all these are actually characteristics of emotions - romance. To be drawn into this condition outside the parameters of an already established relationship is to encourage self-deception. Even if three of the corners of the foundation of the relationship are based on something solid, when the fourth is emotion or romance, then the other three can no longer be seen in the proper perspective, just as the man with the baseball glove. He would be perfectly right to chastise his son for leaving a mess lying around, but because of his emotions, his perception was way out of perspective. He acted irrationally, in the same way our emotions will cause us to react irrationally to see something as better than it is, or to accept something that we would never accept if we were thinking clearly. Emotions and romance are not intended to be part of the foundation of a relationship, but once again, the spice after the foundation has been laid.
So what is the foundation then? What can we rely upon if not feelings? Should we just walk up to any person that we meet and begin looking for a suitable marriage partner? That is a possibility, but before you reach to such lengths. Check your doorstep. The foundation of a marriage relationship must be a friendship. A friend loves at all times. A friend is someone that you enjoy being with, someone that you enjoy talking to, someone that looks out for you, and you for them. A friend is someone that you want to be close to you, and to whom you want to be close. You do not feel threatened if your friend fails to make mooshy eyes at you. Your good standing , and the solidity of your relationship with your friend is not based on how you feel about them at the moment, or whether you feel like kissing him or her. You do not fret over the relationship if you do not feel romantic toward your friend. Your relationship is based on mutual understanding, honesty, the desire to please and share, as well as the ability to communicate and understand one another.
Your closest friends are generally chosen because of a similarity in character. You are honest with your friends in both your shortcomings, as well as letting them see you as you truly are. You have probably already gotten the point, though it has been left unstated. The foundation of any intimate relationship should be friendship. It is amazing that we can form friends that are friends for life, and even have a lifelong best friend, yet our method of choosing a spouse has only a 50% chance of lasting a lifetime. This says something about the foundation of the relationships upon which a marriage should be founded. The foundation of a relationship that evolves into marriage must begin in friendship, for that is the firm foundation that will carry it through the decades. Romance emotions fade - always. So, what happens when you 'fall in love' and get married? The foundation of the relationship involves emotions and romance. This is source of the traditional cliche that "love is blind." When the emotions are clouding how we see a person, we easily over look the negative. All the little things make no difference. Emotions are an anesthetic. All the things that would normally prick our conscience, our nerves, our anger, we do not feel. We are anesthetized by our emotions and the romance of the situation. We see things differently, we feel things differently. When that anesthetic wears off, as all anesthetics do, what will we find? Will we find the friend that was there before the emotions and romance set in, or will we be horrified to find that we do not know this person, neither do we really want to spend the rest of our life with them. When the desire to sit and snuggle and watch movies is gone, will that friend still be there. Will there be anything in common? Will you be able to just sit and talk, or just sit and be silent with each other? Will you be exposed for the first time to this person's true character? If the friendship was not there before the emotions and the romance, there will be no common ground for the relationship when the emotions and the romance are gone. And they will be gone at one point or another.
A marriage is two best friends living life together. A marriage is not a glowing emotional romance of two lovers eternally doing loving things. Too much sugar sickens. Marriage is every day life shared between two friends, punctuated by moments of sweetness and romance. It is during this period of friendship that you learn the character of the person you marry. It is during this time that you truly see them as they are, and that they learn who you really are. There is not really such a large difference between two best friends and a marriage in terms of the character of the relationship. Ideally, you should already know whether you would marry someone when you are still just friends. Decisions of marriage should be based on what you know of someone's character and how good of a friend they make, not how you feel about them.

The Cornerstone of Love

As we have already seen in Matthew 22:37-40, the two greatest commandments are to love God with all your heart

The Puzzle Piece of Love

The concept of love is unchanging. A firm understanding of its stability is necessary to living within it as an ideal. One must see and know that love is not something that fluctuates or depends on anything else. There is nothing that should change love. Love itself has been defined and is a constant. The things surrounding love are the things that change. For instance, our emotions are some of the most inconstant aspects of our selves. They change and flow like a leaf blown across the surface of a pond. The water moves it one way, then the wind blows it another. Such are our emotions. They are liable to change at a moment's notice without warning or direction. And like the wind and the water, outside influences and circumstances move them so easily if we do not take precautions against it. Love however, should be a constant in that ebb and flow of circumstance and emotion. It remains unaffected in that chaos of inconstancy, becoming the stable point in our internal universe of change. It is not based on the changes and shifts of circumstance or emotion. Love is an absolute that requires a belief in its absoluteness. Love does not change with anything.
Love is the tie that binds two people together. There is nothing else that is constant or consistent enough to accomplish a bond that can withstand all the frailties and imperfections of humanity. It is love that puts two people together and enables them to remain there regardless of personality, interests, situation, or emotional temperament. There is absolutely nothing else that can accomplish the things that make a marriage work. People are fluid. All things change in time, but love is a cement that binds together regardless of those changes.
Love is the piece that begins the puzzle. It is the one piece that never changes shape - the piece that all other pieces conform themselves to as time flows on. It is unlike a puzzle, in that once it is put together, it is not a perfect picture that does not change. Rather it is a puzzle that we must constantly work on. There will always be something arising in life, or in ourselves that challenges the shape of love. Just like our relationship with God, there is a constant reshaping of our lives, so that they fit that piece, and the most beautiful picture is built very slowly as the years go by. It grows with time, but requires discipline and sacrifice. It is a lot of work, but the return on it is worth so much more than the sacrifice or effort required.
Because of so much of our romantization of love in modern western society, we labor under a misconception called 'incompatibility.' When people speak the word 'compatible' they speak it as if it were some requirement that must be met for love to be successful. As if incompatibility were something that is just 'built in' to two people. Like some inherent shape that two people have, that just does not fit. It can not be changed, it might as well be accepted that two people are 'just not compatible.' While personality and how two different people react to and view the world is important, it is not something that should challenge love or marriage. There is really no such thing as 'incompatible.' It is a term that we have created in relationships to mean, "I am too selfish to compromise." When there is an apparent 'incompatibility' what is really taking place is that one or both are being selfish - unwilling to adapt, to understand, to yield. Often, it comes down to pride. Pride is something that goes hand in hand with selfishness. The two are inseparable, and they amount to what we call incompatibility.
We are all selfish to some degree, and how much we are willing to adapt and change for love is a direct result of that. I am speaking of personality changes, which I define as anything other than core issues, whether it be habits, appearance, style, etc. For example, the wife who loves will change to appreciate what her husband holds dear, regardless of whether she truly likes it or not, whether that be music, football, hairstyle, etc. By the same standard, the husband who loves will grow to appreciate the things that bring joy to his wife whether that is shopping, a hobby, a career, a style of decor, or fashion (which if a man is wise, he will defer to any woman when it comes to taste in clothing). Though this is a huge issue is marriage, it is also an issue to a lesser degree in any relationship. The idea of love is to give - to sacrifice. It is selfless, and that is how it must be, whether in a marriage, or in every day life.
It is our natural tendency to hold fast to who we are, and what we want to be, refusing to change, to adapt, to surrender ourselves to the desires of another. We are selfish at heart, thinking that we should remain who we are, and if someone can't take us as is, then they are wrong. It is such a prideful attitude disguised as self integrity (insisting that our personality is what we will be and that's what we will be, take it or leave it). Personality is anything that does not have to do with God's principles. Whether it is the manner in which we communicate, our likes and dislikes, anything in us that is not based directly on a Godly principle. Love requires the sacrifice of any of that which we call personality for the sake of the one we love. The only things which must not change must be Godly principles, or character. We are very selfish in our self-righteousness when it comes to being 'compatible.' We disguise this selfishness as integrity of the personality. We take the stance that who we are is more important than our love for someone else, therefore we should not change it for the one we love, nor should we be asked to. People in our society have made love into such a superficial idea that they determine love and the suitability for marriage based on personality. The idea that personal individuality and the ability to maintain one’s personality equals personal integrity and strength, allows us to masquerade selfishness as strength and integrity. Thus when we see our solid unchanging personalities as what defines who we are, then we begin to determine the suitability for love and marriage based on a superficial, and selfish concept, how ‘compatible’ we are. Compatibility has nothing to do with love. It is a product of characteristics of our personality, and is directly proportional to how selfish and prideful we are. It is character that determines who you are, not personality, not likes and dislikes, not hopes or dreams, not circumstance or situation. Our character defines who we are and who we will be. It also shapes our personality, but in slow and subtle ways. When two people have matching character – therein lies a true sense of compatibility. Within the similarity of individuals’ character traits lies the key to the appropriateness of a relationship.
There is a very tricky part to change and love though. It is almost paradoxical. When it comes to anything not dealing directly with a Godly principle, then the one who loves you should be willing to take you as you are without demanding that you change in ways to fit them, because love puts another before itself. So it is their responsibility to change to fit you. However, by the same standard, you will not insist upon their change to fit you, but loving, will instead change yourself to fit them. So, both not demanding the sacrifice of the other, will sacrifice self. In practical terms this results in something resembling a compromise. It is easier to hear it in these terms as an ideal, but it is something that must be very practical in every sense of the word. It must be practiced in every day life with friends, family, and your mate in every way. The only exception is when it comes to Godly principle. That should never be sacrificed for anything. So in the end, refusing to change or adapt yourself to someone that you are called to love is pride, selfishness, and to some degree, fear. Paul says in 1 Cor 9:22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. [23] I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. We adapt ourselves out of love that our love may win others – not just to eternal salvation, but to the very life and love that we are called to live in Christ.
Once again, in a marriage it comes down to being very careful that the person you choose understands and is capable of love. Its success depends on both partners loving, It is like two cards on a table. If you stand both up on end and lean them against each other, they are fairly stable, and can stand, supporting each other, but if one has not surrendered and chosen to love, then it is not leaning against the other providing support, and they will both fall. If each card is not providing the support for the other then it will not work. However, if both people choose to love, then each provides the stability and support for the other. You can not provide for your own support in love. Looking out for your own interests, trying to provide for yourself, will rob both your partner and yourself of support and fulfillment.

The Potter's Wheel of Love

Something that I have learned, and I have never seen a person in which this was not the case, is that at any point in life, we are changing ourselves to please the person that is most important to us. The person to whom we ascribe the greatest worth at any one time in life, usually this means the person who we love the most, is acting as a catalyst for change. We rearrange ourselves in subtle, and sometimes drastic, ways to please this person, to fit ourselves more comfortably with them. Whether this is a boyfriend, wife, brother, friend, or hero, we are constantly molding ourselves to be more like them, or be more of what we think they want or like. In the ultimate sense, the person who holds the largest part of our heart should be Christ before all others. Then on the earthly level, if we are married, this person should be our mate, if not our mate, then whoever we most love and trust will by default be that person whom we are becoming more like.
Our society always seems to view a person changing for another person as psychologically weak, or taboo. However, this is the very thing that love demands, and on most occasions, requires more strength and discipline than maintaining an independent self. Love demands that we change to fit the person we love in very fundamental ways. Without going too far into exactly what love is (which I am saving for a later chapter), let me point out that to love is to abandon the desires of self to a large degree in favor of meeting the desires and needs of others. On the opposing side of the coin though, to change a core issue (a Godly character trait), part of what makes you the person that you are is NOT good, unless that principle is not a Godly one and needs to be changed anyway. It is by the very love of God and our commitment to love Him that we are required to change to fit Him in the most fundamental of ways. He changes the foundation of who we are - the very core issues. It is our love for Him that enables, or should, if we really do love Him, to make these changes, and to maintain them.
The same is true to a lesser degree with our earthly love. Our love should be a catalyst of change in our lives, so that we suit them better. So that we please them more. It is love to give of yourself for the betterment of the one you love. There is a fine distinction that deserves to be mentioned though. What I have said is that love should prompt us to change to be more compatible with the one we love, NOT that we should change to become compatible with someone so that they WILL love us! That is backward. Love is not at all reliant upon compatibility or personality, and if that person has not chosen to love you for who you are, then they will not love you when you change if that issue is a personality issue. Do not desire someone to love you for anything other than your character. If they do, then the love is not stable. It is based on ephemeral things that will change. It will be like ice, melting and flowing away as the climate changes.
The very idea of a marriage in it's true form in the Bible is that of love based on decision and change. Christ expects His bride, the church, to be pure, spotless, and without blemish for His return. It is the expectation of God that we change to fit His character out of our love for Him. The greatest commandment is that 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy soul, and mind.' The second is like it, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Christ points out that all the law and the prophets are based upon this concept. Our relationship, our obedience, and our very lifestyle is designed to be based upon our love of God. That love is what causes us to change, to give up the things that are not pleasing to Him. To begin doing the things that delight Him. Our love is what motivates us to spend time with Him even when we don't want to. Our love is what creates the desire to give up things that we enjoy for His sake.
So, it is with no coincidence that the Paul insists, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church." Christ loved the church so much that He humbled himself and died for it. He made the ultimate sacrifice for His bride, He put aside His desires, His divinity, His comfort, His very health and life for the love He has for His bride. That is the love that we are called to. Can you imagine love inspiring a greater change than the change from omnipotent divinity to fallible mortality? And love calls us to change for the people we love in not only those large ways, but in small, everyday ways as well. To give up our desires by putting the desires of others first. Especially in a marriage relationship.
For women it is no different. "Wives submit to your husbands." There is really very little difference in the command to husbands and wives. A woman's submitting to her husband is done in love by giving up her desires, her comfort, and her very life to please him, just as men are called to make the sacrifice, out of love, that Christ made for His bride, the church. In both cases, the one is called to sacrifice self for the benefit of the other, to 'submit' to the desires and needs of the other. This is not a wholesale 'submittal' of the will. In the case of the wife to the husband this is sometimes necessary, as the husband is called to be the high-priest and head of the household. I believe that the main focus of this is not the submittal of the will to the overlording tyranny of a power hungry man, but a submittal to his (and her) wants, desires, and needs out of love. In the case of a Christian household, the man is expected to maintain the principles of the family, and in this, a wife must submit, as any follower to a leader, whether as the church to Christ, the wife to husband, or citizen to government. As in any case, it is a two party system, with both parties wholly supporting and taking care of the other out of love, and a desire to please.
This is where the emotional side of love comes into play. For the most part I have purposefully downplayed the purpose and importance of emotions in love simply because our society’s utter reliance on them when it comes to love requires such a change in thinking that it is perhaps necessary to ‘react’ against our modern concept. However, when the situation becomes appropriate, emotions, and the “romantic” side of love is very important. The revolution in our thinking is that this only becomes appropriate after the relationship has been established as one that is definitely leading to marriage. In other words, romance, and the emotional side of love is safe and appropriate only through engagement and marriage itself. Then it is very appropriate. I believe that we have confused the issue when it comes to dating. The things that we do in dating, I believe should be reserved for the period before marriage after it has been determined that marriage is definitely on the horizon. Dating should be completely a friendship function in between the time when we become good friends, and the time when we know we want to marry this person. It is to spend time specifically with them, after learning their character, becoming their friend, and seeing the things in them that love requires in a mate. It is a time to better orient ourselves to them one-on-one. We have already spent time with them as a friend, in groups, in a completely non-intimate setting. Dating is not the time for romance, it is a small step just beyond friendship when both realize there is a greater interest and possibility based on what you know of each other’s character. When dating confirms in a more intimate way, what you have learned in friendship, only then comes engagement. Engagement, if you will be so lenient as to permit me to use the term, is a tease. In this I mean that it is a time of “wining and dining.” It is the time to romance and woo our future mate. It is time to introduce the “emotional” side full force. We have already observed and built a relationship that is not based upon emotion, and will stand the test of time, and so it is safe for us to, not only release, but encourage the emotional aspects of love. It is time to add the spice to the relationship!
I can not overstate the importance of emotions and romance at this point. Once it is appropriate, it should be the meat and drink of a marriage relationship. Emotions are what motivate us, and determine our outlook to such a large degree, and it is very important to make them a daily part of a marriage relationship. This is where all of your creative genius and sensitivity to what your mate likes and what excites them comes in. Do things that are slightly unpredictable. Things that they find romantic. Make anything an excuse for a special occasion. Make your husband feel like a king. And make sure your wife knows that she is the most intelligent and attractive woman that has ever walked the face of the earth – in all genuine sincerity. Find small things to do that will brighten his or her day. Surprise them. Learn your spouse’s love language, the things that are most pleasing to them, and then use that as a spice to brighten their day, or night, and your relationship as a whole.
There are as many difference concepts of romance as there are people, and it will take some experimentation and communication to figure out what your mate likes. It is essential to make an effort to learn what it is though, and then tailor your romance to suit what excites them. Ideally, they will do the same for you. In any case, communication, openness and honesty are the key. Don’t expect your mate to be psychic. Tell him or her what pleases you. Encourage them in the things that they do that you like. Provide feedback. Always take time to let them know that they have pleased you and done a wonderful job, even if the attempt is a clumsy one. The only way to help them find what you like is to encourage them. Never discourage or degrade their efforts, even if they are not necessarily what you would choose. Men are rather fragile when it comes to romance and emotion. If you discourage their efforts in an attempt to steer them towards other types of expression, you will most likely find them becoming discouraged, and they will more than likely cease their efforts altogether, feeling clumsy and silly. Usually when this occurs, it is a hint. What someone else does to show that they love you, and that they desire to please you, those are the very things that please them and make them feel special. If your mate gives you flowers, and you do not particularly like flowers, do not discourage their attempts. Simply drop subtle hints about the things that you like and want. At the same time, recognize that they probably think that receiving flowers tells how special you are to them. They have just given you a hint into what they probably like. Try reversing those efforts and see if perhaps they give you flowers because if someone gave them flowers, it would really mean something special to them. When you love someone, a large part of that is adapting, and realizing that what they think is special, should become special to you, regardless of whether you initially value it or not. If your mate thinks that giving you flowers tells you you’re the most special woman in the world, then whether you like flowers or not, it is the intentions of love behind the act, and thus getting flowers should come to mean to you what it means to him when he gives them. While at the same time, encourage him or her in the things you like. Overall, honest and sensitive communication is the key. Feel free to experiment and certainly, use your imagination. Small things like little heartfelt notes, or something made by you, or even a touch makes a world of difference to most individuals. Love, and even the emotional side is entirely a concept of submission and change on both sides to what pleases someone else.
To live this love and support requires a great amount of change in both individuals. That change is not a bad thing. It is not unhealthy. For a person to change for the sake of love is not only healthy, but expected. We are constantly expected by love to mold ourselves to better fit, to be more pleasing to the one we love, just as Christ made the most drastic change possible for the sake of His bride. Just as we are expected to change to fit His principles, ideals, and desires.
There is a tenuous boundary hidden within this idea though. Love expects us to change, yet we, in our love should rarely, if ever, expect the one we love to change for us. We should expect as a general rule that the one who loves us will be willing to give of themselves, to change to accommodate us in ways, yet we should never have to ask it, because we ourselves should be willing to change to accommodate them as well. When you love someone and genuinely put them before yourself, you do not wait for an opportunity or occasion to please them. You go looking for things to do and ways to please them – to make them feel special. You make occasions, you look for ways to give, to submit, to make their life, their day, their very heart a better place to be. This can be something as small as offering to make them a snack, or just taking them someplace nice on a whim. It is almost always a submission to put the other before yourself though. As a practical example. James loves sports cars. His wife Jill loves the dignity and style of the luxury car. So James wants a Viper, and Jill wants a Lexus. Both of them knowing this, James could ask Jill to agree to get a Viper. In essence, to change her desires to fit his, and Jill could ask the same of James. But, either knowing that it is very important to the other, should instead offer to change themselves to fit the desires of the other instead of asking the other to change to fit their own desires. So, in both being selfless, instead of getting taken advantage of, by allowing the other to have what they want, receive the love and sacrifice of the other. That is one of the beautiful things about love. You can give totally of yourself, sacrificing all, yet instead of being taken advantage of and losing all that you sacrifice, if you are in a relationship with someone that truly loves you as well, they will be doing the same thing, and you will get back what you have given, because they will be seeking to give to you and please you in everything they do, so the total sacrifice of self is reciprocal. Instead of losing everything in your sacrifice, you are giving yourself away, only to receive everything from someone else. Love is trusting enough to stop looking out for yourself and your desires to concentrate on looking out for someone else's, and it works perfectly because they are doing the same thing for you. It is a total exchange of focus. Your focus is on pleasing them, yet you are not neglected because their focus is on pleasing you, and so a balance is achieved caring for both of the two. Two people, each shouldering the burden for the other, and so the burden is shared between them, and it isn't so heavy anymore.
It is a reflection of our relationship with God. We give up ourselves, our desires, our goals, to work towards His desires and goals because we love Him and want to sacrifice everything to please Him. But we lose nothing. In fact, we gain everything because with this love and commitment to Him, His focus is on loving us, and blessing us, and so we turn out better for the sacrifice. The same should be true in our earthly relationships if we truly understand and live in love.
The problem with so many relationships today is the inequality of focus. Even if one, or both, partners understand love and what it is and means, there can easily be an inequality of that exchange of focus. What results is that one person is focused on meeting the needs and pleasing the other one, and the other one, for whatever reason has not changed his or her focus to their partner, and so is still looking out for him/herself. This results in one person giving of their self to please their partner and getting very little in return because their partner is not focussed on meeting their love's needs but on their own, and so one person is not getting any fulfillment or emotional or relational protection out of the relationship, and in effect, gets taken advantage of. The partner who is still focused on self, and their own needs and desires does not necessarily mean to take advantage of their partner, but that is the effect regardless, because someone is giving all of themselves to their love, while the object of this love and devotion accepts their love, but does not reciprocate that sacrifice and submission of self. Therefore a serious imbalance occurs. This is a common case in relationships in which love is misunderstood, or in which only one of the partners understands the exchange of focus required in loving. Very often, one may see this as a result of one person being self-sufficient for so long, that they have a hard time trusting enough to relinquish that guarding of self-interest. It is difficult for a person who has had no one to love or look out for them in that way, or someone who has been forced to care for themselves, and be the provider all their life, to be able to turn over that trust to someone else. It is so difficult because it is a total relinquishing of control and trust to someone, being able to count on them to look out for your heart, and your best interests, above their own - especially if that person has never experienced that kind of relationship or love before. It is like asking someone to leap off a cliff with only a promise that you will catch them. In effect, it is asking someone to be helpless, and trust you to take care of them emotionally and relationally. That is one of the reasons that marriage is such a large step. You absolutely must be able to trust the one you love to be able to uphold that trust and that responsibility. You must know that they understand that they will hold that fragile thing in their hands and that they promise to keep it safe and think of you and your interests, feelings, desires, and life above their own, even as you must be prepared, and able, to do the same for them. Only then will a relationship and a marriage be successful. Often it requires the patience and understanding of the mate, or in an ideal circumstance the intended mate, to realize that his or her partner may have the seed of that love in his or her heart, but may have trouble releasing that focus and trust to someone else, they may desire to take that step and find themselves unable to do so. There is a very fine line here that must be tread very carefully. Healing and release only comes with discipline and work, even when it is miraculous and instant. The mate must be willing to wait and encourage, not expect an instantaneous outpouring, even should his partner recognize that this is the case. However, too much understanding and sympathy is unhealthy as well, it only encourages weakness and contentment in the problem. Like a person who has been in an automobile accident and has been without the use of his legs for a long time. People accept that he has an inability to reach things for himself because of a past instance, and so, understand and help him by reaching and getting things for him. But if he is not encouraged, and even forced to begin rejecting his injury and reaching things for himself again, he will never leave his wheelchair and regain the healthy use of his legs. As long as he is not forced to get over his injury, he will remain content to allow people to take up the dysfunction that his past caused.
So, a certain amount of sympathy, understanding and sacrifice is necessary on the part of a relational partner who finds himself or herself in this situation, but to allow it to go on past the point to which their partner is able to get up and make that step, is to encourage weakness and dysfunction, and healing will never take place.

The Gift of Love

One of the largest ways to give to someone is to give of yourself. And one of the most sincere ways in which one can do that is to change to be more pleasing to someone that you love. However, change is a large issue that requires discipline and hard work. That is one of the key stones in the foundation of any successful relationship. That is however, not the only, or even most common expression of giving love. Every day relationships have to be considered as well as marriage and our relationship with God. You friends, acquaintances, strangers, and even enemies are all part of the command to love; keeping in mind that we are to love them as we love ourselves. We have often heard the saying, usually associated with supporting charities, “Give till it hurts.” Well where do we draw the line for giving, and with whom? Are we willing to give as much to a stranger as to our best friend, or even to our spouse? Where do we draw the line in giving to those we care about and becoming a doormat, or in giving to the detriment of our self?
So should we not use Christ as our example? Should we draw a line between giving a friend ten dollars to pay an overdue bill, or between a stranger needing a hundred dollars to buy his family Christmas presents, or even groceries? Is there a difference? What if when your friend needs ten dollars, you happen to have one hundred? You would not miss ten of it too much, but what if that stranger’s need would take your last one hundred dollars? What if that is all you have? It is ridiculous to give so much that you have nothing yourself is it not? No, actually, by the example of Christ, that is exactly what we are called to do. That is a part of love. Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, when did He draw the line? When did He say, “I’m sorry, if I give you any more, I’ll have nothing left to feed myself.” Or when did He say, “I don’t have time.” He did not. The only times that He stopped giving of himself to the masses, was when He had to renew Himself so that He could go on giving, or when He secluded Himself with His disciples so that He could give more personally to them. Other than that, He did not just stop giving when it hurt. He kept on giving regardless of Himself. Our motto should instead be, “Don’t just give until it hurts. Give until you’re dead.” That is exactly the example Christ gave. And John says, what greater love has any man, than that he lay down his life for a friend? Then in Philippians 2 it commands us to have the same attitude as Christ, who humbled Himself, even to the point of death on the cross. So where do we draw the line on how much we give and to whom? We do not. Christ gave his own life, for those who despised him. The only things that should limit our giving is our hierarchy of responsibility. What I mean by this is that by our promises and the commands of God, there is a certain responsibility that is inherent in certain parts of our lives and relationships. Our hierarchy should flow as follows:
God
Family
Friends
Others
Self

Then each of those can be further specified, such as your spouse comes before your children. But regardless of the hierarchy, nothing should stop you from giving as much to someone in the ‘other’ category, as you would to someone in the ‘family’ category. The differentiation comes when giving to someone lower on the list prevents you from giving to someone higher on the list. In other words, you violate your responsibilities to a higher priority to give to a lower one. It would not be right to take from your tithe, to give to the poor. That is taking something that you should be giving to God and giving it to someone lower on the responsibility hierarchy. It is our responsibility to give God ten percent. It is violating that responsibility to give that ten percent to someone else. Or, if your wife needs your time and attention and your friend needs it , it should go to your wife, she is a higher responsibility than your friends. Do not take food from your children to give to strangers. However, in the hierarchy, do take food from yourself to give to strangers. However, anything which does not violate the hierarchy, or one of God’s principles should be given as part of our love to others. This is a novel way of thinking, and to truly live it requires us to adjust our thinking to hold very loosely to material goods, and to truly begin to put others before ourselves. However, love sometimes requires a toughness. There is a time when giving in love means that you do not give something that may be best for a person not to have, or even giving it in a different way. To give ten dollars to the homeless man on the corner asking for food money, when he reeks of alcohol, is not love. Love is giving not only of your finances, but your time, to take him to the corner McDonalds and feeding him a meal. To simply give him money, so that he can feed his alcohol addiction is worse than ignoring him and giving nothing at all. Similarly, to give your children everything they want, is not love. It does not teach them to work, or be diligent, or to give of themselves for something they desire. It is a fine line that requires discernment to walk.

The Cord of Love

Once again, with the modern concept of love being so based upon emotion and 'feelings,' it is easy, once we realize this, to react against our emotions and tend to shut them out to a large degree, as untrustworthy. This is a common reaction in life. At one point or another, we have all been disappointed and been betrayed, or been abused because we have allowed our emotions to lead us into situations where we have been abused. Or something has occurred in our life that is too painful for us to deal with on an emotional level, and so we section off our emotions, developing a buffer that keeps them from feeling. Or perhaps we are in a situation in which we do not have the time or room to allow feelings to have a valid place in our everyday lives. In many cases, people find themselves binding their emotions, and turning off their feelings. No matter what may have occurred in life or love, to stifle the emotional aspect of our selves is a mistake. Just as it is a mistake to place too much credence in the leading of our emotions or feelings.
God created man in His image, which I believe means to be made of three balanced parts. The emotions, the intellect, and the will. When God created man, all three of these things were in balance, each providing a piece of the whole, unified man. When man fell, his being was shattered, and the three parts are now in opposition, and like Humpty Dumpty, we can not put the pieces back together to reinstate, a whole, unified, healed mankind. This is the problem of perspective and ambivalence. As a shattered individual, it becomes possible for us to perceive life, or an individual circumstance, through an imbalance of the filters of emotion, intellect, or will. All three of these elements are a valuable and necessary part of man, and should be a part of his perception of life and circumstance. All three of these things must be balanced and working together, not in opposition, for us to perceive things clearly, and to make healthy decisions. Someone who perceives too much through the emotional lens is likely to rocket from place to place with very little consistency or make very irrational and unhealthy decisions, and will be bound by fear. Someone who perceives too much through the intellectual lens will be lacking in depth and fulfillment relationally. Their perception of the world will be largely cynical or sociopathic, with little feeling or conscience to guide them. They will also tend to miss the moving of God's spirit or the little things in life that make it so much more than just a mechanism. Then someone who has an overabundance of reliance on 'will' tends to be stubborn, with little regard for considering things rationally, or considering the emotional consequences. Conversely, someone who does not see enough of the world through 'will' tends to make good decisions, but is unable to carry them out. They will tend not to carry things through, and will have many different tasks or good ideas, all uncompleted.
This is a general overview of the imbalance of the three shattered pieces of the persona. A life lived in wholeness, with as much balance among the three as possible, will be consistent, have integrity, and make sense. It will be characterized by dignity and wisdom.
What does all this have to do with love? Well, as love is one of the largest and most important ingredients of life, real love is characterized by the balance of all three of these elements. It is no coincidence that the greatest commandment consists of loving with three different parts. "Love the Lord your God will all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind." (MT 22:36). Christ has included each of the three elements of man in the command - with all your heart (will), with all your soul (emotions), and with all your mind (intellect). For love to be balanced, for it to be real, for it to last, for it to be and accomplish everything that it is designed to be and accomplish, it must be made of each of these three elements.
In Ecclesiastes it is written that a "cord of three strands is not easily broken." Take a look at love that is not bound of three cords. If emotion is lacking, then love is dry. It becomes equal to a liturgy. Something that we do because we know it is right, but it lacks life, it lack the power to excite us, and the cord may be broken. However, if intellect is missing, then we really have no idea what it is we are loving. We are aiming blindly at a target with no rational thought or commitment. We are led simply by emotion and stubbornness, with no real idea of commitment or of understanding who we are loving or what love is, and the cord is broken. If will is lacking, then there is no commitment at all, and when things are no longer the ideal of what we expect life, love, and our relationship to be, when it runs into hard times, then we falter and the cord is broken. However, a cord of three strands is not easily broken, and love is characterized by all three of these elements - Life/excitement (emotions), understanding/decision (intellect), and consistency/commitment (will). Love is designed to work and to be able to uphold the greatest of loads, and all the demands of life and a relationship if it contains the three cords.

Diamond or Dirt?

There is no prerequisite for love among humans. There is, however a prerequisite for marriage, and there really are only three. The first is that God does not tell you 'No." This is taking into account the principles in His word regarding marriage, such as "Do not be unequally yoked." If there is peace from God then requirement number one is met. There are a lot of people who labor under the concept that there is one person out there that is perfect for them, and that they, in turn, belong to only one person and, are perfect for one person only, thus arises a fear that they could miss the “one.” This does not seem very consistent or realistic. If this were so, there would be a very small chance of success for finding 'that perfect someone' since your finding them is not only dependant upon you knowing and following the will of God in your life every step of the way, but also, by necessity, they must follow God's will perfectly as well. So what if the one, perfect, all-compatible one that was chosen for you decides to marry someone else? Then not only have they irrevocably ruined any chance of you ever finding God's chosen mate for you, but they have fouled up them ever finding God's mate for them (you), not to mention that now whoever they married will never find God's chosen mate for them, which means that their original God chosen mate will probably marry someone else, which will in turn displace them from finding God's chosen one for them, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. This scenario implies that one person's misdirection in determining their mate could throw off a whole generation, preventing them from finding God's perfect will in their life. It does not seem to me that God's will is so fragile that He requires every person to only be meant for one person. God is quite capable of accomplishing what He desires in someone's life regardless of such things. God has known since He set the very foundation stone of time, who you would marry, and though it may not be His perfect will, He knows who you will choose, and be chosen by. So even should you mess up, God has known since the beginning who it would be, and considering that He know who it will be, He has already begun preparing them for you, and you for them (should you be faithful in praying and desiring His will, interceding for them even before you know who it will be). The Spirit of God does not work like a machine, requiring everything to fit into one particular slot with no area for flexibility. God has given each person free will, and the capability to grow in various ways of their own choosing. I do not believe that He is so locked into a rigid plan that it falls apart due to the free will of one person. His plan is perfect and His timing is perfect as well. God's concept of love is so large that compatibility is really not an much of an issue. God will accomplish what He desires to in an individual whatever the circumstances, as long as that individual is willing. That is not to say that God does not intend for some people not to be together. The gifts and talents that He has given you, the desires that He has placed in your heart, are there for a reason, and He does not desire you to be married to someone else whose gifts and God given desires are at cross purposes to your own. If God's plan is for you to be a long-term missionary to India, He will not give you the 'ok' to marry someone who He has planned to stay where they are, in ministry to a local body of believers. But for the large part, I believe that God allows us to choose our own circumstances. So, the first requirement should be that your spirit is at peace, that God has not forbidden the relationship to you in your spirit Requirement one is not enough though. A prospective mate can not make the commitment that God intends in marriage if they do not understand that commitment. Requirement number two is a little more difficult to determine because it involves the will and understanding of another human, and that is always something very easy to misunderstand. The second check is this: your intended partner must first understand exactly what love is and be willing to commit to it. They must understand the things written in 1 Corinthians 13 and how it relates to the character of God, and what that means to a person today. They must understand and be clear about what love is and what it demands and that they can fill that cup, or try with everything they have within them. That is the commitment of love. It must be something that both refuse to question. No earthly love will be perfect, just as no one will be able to sacrifice their own selfishness consistently. But love requires that the partner must understand this and be willing to forgive and understand the human weakness and the mistakes that will occur, and there must be a commitment to go on and work through that without ever doubting or abandoning the love they have. Still, though, this is not enough. The third requirement is this: the person must exhibit the character necessary to uphold their commitment. Check the character of the person to whom you intend to bind yourself to for your whole life. Examine the character of the person that you are giving everything you are, and have to. Take a look at the character of the person to whom you are about to surrender complete trust and vulnerability to. Will the character of this person uphold and be worthy of all those things? Are they worthy of the trust that you are placing in their hands? What attracted you to this person? Their character, or their characteristics? If it is characteristics, such as personality, looks, fashion sense, intellect, humor, etc. then you are standing on the brink of a chasm. You are about to place your life, your heart, your future, your happiness in the hands of someone because of silly, ephemeral things that will change with the passing of years, or maybe even months. You can only trust character, the core of a person, to uphold these things for a lifetime. If you throw yourself into a lifelong commitment on the fragility of a few characteristics that you like, or on the deceptive seduction of romance, then you are deciding to willingly accept every moment of broken dreams, abuse, misery, and a loveless marriage because you have built it on blocks of sand that are slowly dissolving. It is like choosing a house for the rest of your life, based on the color it is painted outside, instead of what is inside. It is pointless for someone to understand love and what it requires, and being willing to commit to it if their character can not uphold that understanding and commitment. However, with these three requirements met, (1. The blessing of God, 2. A mutual understanding/commitment of love, and 3. the character of Godliness) it is entirely possible for any two people to be happily married for a lifetime.
If these three requirements were met, you could safely walk up to anyone in the world, propose, and have a successful marriage. The characteristics of the person are largely irrelevant if your heart is in the right place. If you have a heart filled with the spirit, inspired by God, then you will be attracted to the same things that He is. The things that are beautiful to Him will be beautiful to you - character. A person of the right character will always be beautiful to someone of like character. When it comes down to it, a person's personality, and so many characteristics are determined by their character. A person who has a strong faith in God will be at peace, and will be able to laugh and enjoy life. They will be an encourager. A person who has honesty and integrity will not be afraid to speak out, and will be confident and bold, able to be trusted, and hence be trusted by most. A person who is generous in spirit will not be stingy or selfish, but will give willingly to all. Nor will he or she be worried about 'things,' or about them being broken or taken. Thus they will be much more relaxed and young in spirit. A person whose strength is in the joy of the Lord will have a good attitude, and not be a stick in the mud. So many things in a personality are a result of a healthy character. Unfortunately, it does not work in reverse. An individual with a great personality need not have a good character. And eventually, though it may be years down the road, the personality will conform to the character.
So many people that I meet express a fear of meeting someone who has a great personality, and seems like such a wonderful person, and then later finding that it was all an act, or that the person changes. For some this is a fear because it has happened. I remember a story that a woman told me. She was young and she met a really nice young man who she dated for some time. He did not go to church regularly, but always went when she asked. She knew that she should not date him, but contented herself with the explanation that she was bringing him closer to God, and indeed, it seemed she was. Her parents warned her that if he was going to church for her, it was for the wrong reason and wouldn't last. She had explained to him that she could not date a non-Christian, and he seemed to understand, and so acquiesced to her convictions about God. On the day that they were married, as they drove away from the church, she was so happy. It seemed her parents had been wrong. Then, far into the drive, as she was reclining with her eyes closed enjoying the sun on her face through the window, he spoke. "Jenny, I'm glad we're finally married, and we don't have to do that church thing for your parents anymore." She told me that happy marriage ended not even a day after the wedding. She was stuck in a miserable marriage for many long years. It had not even taken a day before her husband changed so that his characteristics fit his character. That is a truly frightening scenario, to think that you can be fooled and not really know a person regardless of how intently you look. But that is only the case if you are looking at characteristics. If you search, and look, and pay attention to character, you can be assured of the true nature of a person. It is impossible to hide character for very long if someone is truly looking at that, and not blinded by characteristics.
It is not really very hard to determine whether you should marry a person. Those three qualifications answer that question. The difficult part is finding someone with the right character. There is not an overabundance of people who have both the understanding of love, and the character to uphold that understanding. In fact, people like that are extremely rare.