Word Study: LOVE

BYTES~ Word Study: LOVE

Love Is A Choice, Not Merely A Feeling

Romans 5:5 ¹(NKJV) Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

A couple I knew was having some marital issues. The husband, after another night of arguing, asked me what he should do if he had fallen out of love with his wife. I consulted with the Holy Spirit for the best possible response to his query. I told him, “Love is a choice, not merely a feeling. There will be many days in your marriage when you will wake up in the morning and feel that you no longer love your spouse. That is when you must make a choice, determining in your heart and mind, to love your spouse. It is up to you to start each day by making the choice to love your spouse despite your differences. That is what love is all about.”

What Is Love?

‘²Aheb and ³Agapao are two words used to depict love, the first from the Old Testament and the second from the new. ‘Ahab or aheb in the Old Testament is defined as to have affection for, and agapao in the New Testament is to love in a social or moral sense.

God Chooses To Love Us

God chooses daily to love us despite ourselves! He is our ultimate example of how to love well. To love is a choice, not only a feeling. We, mankind, are the direct objects of God’s love. He created the world and the Universe as an act of love for His Crowning Glory: us.

Psalms 8:3-5 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honour.

God did not wait for us to become perfect before He showed His love for us.

Romans 5:8 (NKJV) But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God looks down with love from Heaven. What do we, then, look up in? Do we even look up?

 Is Your Love For God Subjective Only, Or Objective, Too?

It is easy to make the choice that you have fallen out of love with your spouse, or out of love with God. It is easy to fall out of love when you live by your feelings alone. A subjective love is governed by how you feel each day, what mood you are in. Our emotions are essential to our interaction with the world around us, but we must be wise and discern when we are making choices based solely on our feelings instead of objective choices based on fact, faith, the truth of the Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Living life with your heart on your sleeve is not a wise way to live. Our flesh, our emotions, can lead us astray and away from God and from the good things God has in store for us. The Bible calls those not yet weaned off the milk of feelings and emotions, who do not yet know how to discern the Word correctly, that is, those who live by sight and not by faith, babies.

Hebrews 5:13 (KJV) For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the Word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

The Right Way To Love

As I advised the young husband about his marriage, so I advise all of us to make loving God and others a daily choice. When we choose the opposite path, we fall quickly into sin. The choice is ours whether we will live the right way, God’s way, or if we will continue to pursue our own, misguided way.

Deuteronomy 6:4-6 (NKJV) Hear, O Israel (and you, the Church): The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.

Just as to love is a choice, so not to love is a choice, too. When the people chose to no longer love God but to pursue and desire the ways of the nations surrounding them, they fell into sin and idolatry, chasing after things and not after their God. So, we, too, when we neglect to choose the right way of loving and pursuing God in all our ways on a daily basis, will find our love toward Jesus growing cold.

Revelation 2:4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. ~ Jesus to His Church.

So Why Love?

So why is God so adamant about ensuring that we understand that He is love, that we are loved, that we need to love one another as He loves us, and that we need to make the choice to love every day? His Word says it best:

1) John 13:34-35 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

If you are not walking in love toward God or others, then you need to examine your heart in the light of Scripture. Our hearts are to mirror the heart of love of God, and not emulate the selfishness and self-centeredness of this age. Our choice to love God and others shows that Jesus lives in our hearts, that we are His disciples because as He is so are we in this world. His nature is love. Ours should be, too.

2) Deuteronomy 7:13 And He will love you and bless you and multiply you.

The second reason for us making a daily choice to love God on purpose is that then we will be walking in the love and blessings of God. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments, Jesus said (John 14:15), and His commandments are not grievous, but rather, they are our source of life. If we keep God’s ways, we walk in the light and will experience and enjoy success and victory, and possess the strength to overcome. When we do not remain in His love, we open our lives to all sorts of unwanted trouble and misery.

3) The third reason as to why we should choose to love is because of the days we live in. If we remain in and choose to keep ourselves in the love of God at all times, praying in the Spirit, we will be able to remain rooted and grounded, unshaken, immovable and unwavering in our faith in God despite the wars, the rumours of wars, the plagues, the lawlessness, hatred, greed and corruption destroying our world.

Matthew 24:12 And because lawlessness will abound (in these last days), the love of many will grow cold. But he, or she, who endures to the end shall be saved. ~Jesus our Lord.

The trials, troubles and sorrows we experience in this world, and their seeming acceleration in recent times, could cause our love to grow cold. It has for many. Many have already walked away from God, blaming Him for all the misery in the world and in their lives, not realizing or not willing to acknowledge that there is an antagonist out there who loves to steal, kill and destroy as many as would buy his lies! (See John 10:10.)

How To Keep Your Love Strong

But you are not as those who fall away so easily, I believe. You have been tempted a few times in recent years or days to just give up on faith and on God. But I encourage you today to keep your love strong by: 

1. Fighting the good fight of faith 

2. Not giving up so easily. 

3. Submitting to God. 

4. Resisting the devil, knowing he will flee from you. 

5. Praying in the Spirit on a daily basis so that you will begin to mature in the things of God, be able to discern good from evil, and keep your love strong in the Lord. 

The Holy Spirit lives in us. That means God’s love lives in us. We need not be afraid that we will lose our love; that is, if we walk by faith and not by feelings or sight.

It is entirely your choice to walk in love toward God and others. God has given you the ability to love even through the toughest storm. The Holy Spirit in you sheds God’s love abroad to you and through you. His Spirit also teaches us to choose to love God daily. Be led by the Spirit, and not by your flesh. He will not lead you into temptation. He will lead you into all the good things God has in store for you even as He is leading you to your Heavenly reward. Write a note to yourself, or use my pic as your desktop image, to remind yourself that:

Love Is A Choice, Not Merely A Feeling.    

¹Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from the New King James Version (NKJV), © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible in the public domain.

² ³Hebrew and Greek Definitions taken from The New Strong’s® Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, ©1995, 1996 by Thomas Nelson Publishers. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Meaghan Spies © 2022