What's Love Got To Do With It?

Recently I spoke at my church on this topic. I have now looked over my teaching notes and I present to you the expanded rewrite-new wordsmith of the teaching in the effort to discuss this all with you over the internet. Since there is no time constraints in writing I have expounded more on this subject then when presented at church.

So, let’s first discuss the following profound, yet secular statement:
“Oh, what's love got to do with it? What's love but a second hand emotion? What's love got to do with it? Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken?”

Obviously this is the chorus from the song, “What’s Love Got to Do with It” by Tina Turner. I think she has legitimate concerns and questions.

We must all realize how we throw the word, “LOVE” around very casually, very callously, and often times incorrectly….
“I’m lovin’ it!” is the current marketing slogan for Mc Donald’s fast food restaurants….It is near impossible to love any fast food (or any other food for that matter) when we apply the biblical definition and understanding of love. Granted we can come close to “loving” their “Happy Meals” but even then it’s just the cool toys in the box that we enjoy…..for our kids of course. Wait, I don’t have any kids…..

How often have we said, “I loved that movie?” Can I really love a movie? Or how frequently have we walked into a store and said, “Oh, I love these shoes.” Again, can we love these things once we understand what love really is? Hmmm, we need to raise the bar on our use and understanding of what love is.

Admittedly, the chorus brings up two very interesting questions I hope to answer:
1) Is love only an emotion, a second-hand emotion at that?
2) Why love at all—why expose my heart to possibly being broken?

These are the questions Tina Turner asks….

First, understand God declares He is LOVE:
1 John 4:7, 8
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God--for God is LOVE.

So now we have the start of the biblical definition and understanding of love. So, If God is LOVE, then when we answer Tina Turner’s question, we must say LOVE has EVERYTHING to do with it. Understanding that love is the basis of everything we do; love is the basis of everything we should do; and love is the basis of everything God does for us, through us, and around us.

So what does LOVE consist of? Well, it says in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Again, looking at Mc Donald’s marketing effort; you will be hard pressed to apply the truth of this scripture to the experience of eating. Perhaps you could argue that patience can be applied here, and that is only because “fast food” has become, not so fast food.

Nowhere in the above passage is love focused on as an emotion….Understand our human emotions are not consistent; our human emotions are not stable; and our human emotions are not everlasting.

Our emotional sense of love can and does change from moment to moment, situation to situation, day by day, feeling to feeling, person to person, and year to year. If and when our love is rejected, abused, or otherwise broken, we tend to stop feeling the emotion of love….Emotions change.

God wants all of us to love beyond our emotions, beyond how we feel at any one given moment. God desires a consistency in our love based upon scripture, based upon who God is, and based upon how God loves us. This is because God is love.

Do you remember your first “crush?” I do. (Sigh)I couldn’t stop thinking about her, I’d draw her name over and over again in block letters sometimes with hearts and flowers and kisses next to her and my name. I’d replace her last name with mine and silly things like that... But at that time, “I knew what love had to do with it.” When we would pass in the hall, she was the only one I could see—walking in slow-motion, wind blowing through her hair, music playing in my mind….you get the picture. She could do no wrong, and what ever she did, I thought she was the best. The best at tether ball, the best “jungle-gym” athlete.

It’s kind of sad to think about now because I can’t even remember her face or her name now….See that “crush” was in elementary school…. And I was full of emotions…full of “love.” Had you asked me at that time what love was….I would have pointed to her as the definition of love.

Even as adults things are not much different. We can get so impassioned, so caught-up in the emotion of love that we do some pretty crazy things. Like, tattoo’s we will have a hard time removing and explaining later on in life….especially if we marry someone else.

I think it was C.S. Lewis who is quoted as saying that it is easy to fall in love, but it is difficult to stay in love.

See, as you develop a friendship, a relationship, or continue dating someone what was once cute and unnoticeable….begins to be glaringly noticeable…after time you begin to notice their nose hair, or that annoying laugh, or that they are not air-brushed beauties like in all the glamour magazines…We have carried over so many misconceptions of love based solely on marketing efforts, TV, movies, by the world’s set of standards and definitions…we think that love is love.

Take a moment and consider our “love” of a puppy. We “love” the puppy. We let it jump all over us, we allow it to lick us all over, and we start talking baby-talk to it, right. Well, that same dog is now 95 pounds and we would simply “love” for it to stop jumping up on us; keep its dog breath and tongue away from us; and we send it outside.

The dog is closer to an unconditional, unchanging, forgiving, hopeful, enduring love than we are. We changed our emotional sense of love for the dog somewhere between the initial puppy stage and several months or years of cleaning up after it and having the burden of “loving” the dog. The dog did not change, we did, and the poor creature can’t comprehend why its affections are now unwanted and discouraged. “Down Fido, down!” Yet, as a puppy we encouraged it to jump into our lap. The dog doesn’t know it got bigger, it only knows what it can know….

So, let’s go back to our discussion about relationships. When we are in a relationship, one day that person does upset you and the emotion of love changes to something else……and some not-so-nice thoughts…. Intentionally or not, the relationship changes and we fall out of “love”, when we hold on to the secular, popular emotion of love as our base….It is an unstable, weak base.

In the emotion of love we can also chose to love the wrong person: an abusive person, a selfish person, or a lying person. Perhaps a person who wants more of our body and less of the rest of who we are. They devalue us, bringing us down to the level of a “pleasing object, a trophy, or a toy. We might discover they have no sense of what true love is, because they don’t really know God.

Chose now to hold to the solid foundation love: God who is our rock!

Let me offer you a test to determine where we are in how we love, using 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.
It is called a “Gap Analysis” It is a business tool to measure the ideal standards of quality control and customer service against actual business practices and applications.

What you want to do is read aloud the following scripture:
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Now, re-read the scripture; replacing the word “love” with your own name.

For example:
Keiger is patient and kind. Keiger is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Keiger does not demand his own way. Keiger is not irritable, and Keiger keeps no record when he has been wronged. Keiger is never glad about injustice but Keiger rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Keiger never gives up, Keiger never loses faith, Keiger is always hopeful, and Keiger endures through every circumstance.

So, now you try it, reading it aloud, see if you can make it through without fail, or an embarrassed laugh, or without feeling the weight of truth….I can’t make it past the first one or two sentences without feeling that weight….See, that is the gap of where I stand and where God wants me to be. I have things I need to work on so that I can truly love. It is a wonderful tool to help us to close that gap.

________ is patient and kind. ________ is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. ________ does not demand his/her own way. ________ is not irritable, and ________ keeps no record when he/she has been wronged. ________ is never glad about injustice but ________ rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ________ never gives up, ________ never loses faith, ________ is always hopeful, and ________ endures through every circumstance.


Taking this analysis can help us see what we need to pray about and work on in our lives…. It can really show you where your love stands and where God says to stand in love.

Staying with 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 let me break it down further as to:
1) How to understand our love toward God.
2) How to understand our love towards one another.

As we walk in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ ask yourself:
Am I patient—in my prayers and requests of God? It’s like when I ask for patience, but I want it now. So often we want God to fix stuff in our lives immediately…as the goal, yet God sees it all as a process that helps us grow as we go through it all. I need to realize that God will be with me at the start, in the middle, and at the end of each and every circumstance. In fact, God never left my side. For God will never leave me, nor forsake me. So often, we want the “quick-fix.” We want the end results without having to go through the middle.

Realize it is in this process of learning patience that we are lead to progress—to endurance, perseverance, empathy and all the other benefits God grants us. That is why God says love “endures THROUGH every circumstance. It’s not love bypasses, eliminates, or removes every circumstance. In learning and holding on in patience and longsuffering, there is a maturing, a healing, and even a ministry to others as we go “through” it all with patience.

Am I kind—in my response to God and in my motives for the things I ask of God? Do I treat God as if he is a Genie in a bottle? Opening up the bottle when I want something and then shutting him back in the bottle when I want to live according to my carnal desires. I need to ask myself, “Why, do I want this?” Is my motive kind?
James 4:3
And when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

Too often my prayers have been focused on my pleasures and about pleasing me…..that is often unkind toward God. I need to pray, “God, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and may this part of the earth begin with me.”

Am I jealous of what God seems to have given others and not to me? Do I think I should have been given other things in answer to my prayers?

Am I boastful or proud of my “spirituality” or of the sacrifices and things I give or do for God? “If you only knew the sacrifices and sufferings I have gone through”….Do I look and sound like the Pharisees Christ warned against? Too often, I do act and sound like one of them. I have to be leery of spiritual pride for it says in Proverbs 3:34
God sets himself against the proud, but he shows favor to the humble.

I have a prayer I say nearly everyday….”Lord, please teach me humbleness by choice, rather than humility through circumstances.” I sure would prefer to be humble and not be humiliated…wouldn’t you?

Am I rude toward God—Do I grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30)?

Do I demand my own way with God….holding my breath and stomping my feet like a little child?

Am I irritable towards God, because he’s not functioning like the God I would have designed?
“God, you’re not listening to my good counsel here…..hello.” Who am I to counsel God? I must realize his ways are higher than my ways….

Do I keep a record of when I feel God has “wronged me” by not giving me what I want, when I want it?
“Yeah God, you didn’t answer this, and you didn’t answer that, gosh, according to my records you NEVER answer my prayers the way I ask for them to be answered.”

Am I glad about injustice in the world or am I truly glad when God’s truth wins out?

Do I give up on God? Do I walk away and turn my back on Him? I did….and it cost me dearly because I dragged myself through some serious circumstances.

Do I easily lose faith in God? Disillusioned by a not so powerful, or not so all-loving, or not so all-giving small “g” god I created in my mind…. See I misunderstand God by my own preconceptions and selfish wants. I can’t create God in my image.

Am I always hopeful for the things of God?

Do I endure in my love for God through every circumstance God permits in my life? Look, God’s love for us has certainly endured through every circumstance that we’ve chosen to go through.

Now, if you have ever wondered if God really loves you; if you have ever feared that God does not love you, it may be because you have been misled and deceived by the world as to what love is and what’s love got to do with you, with me, with us.

For a long time I thought God could no longer love me because I turned away from Him when I was young, then got into drinking and parties, a later attempted suicide, and extremely selfish actions of this world…. I was wrong, see I don’t have to prove myself to God, to gain his approval. I don’t need to do more, be more, work harder so God will love me, not at all. See, God REALLY LOVES ME. He even likes me and He REALLY LOVES YOU and likes you too. Whew heugh!

It’s been a struggle for me to toss out the past failings of my own doing and that of my father who abandoned me and the family through divorce, a priest who sexually molested me, and a mother who threatened and/or attempted suicide more times than I can remember.

If I base love upon those experiences I have much to fear. If I base love on the bible—God’s Word and I come to understand God’s perfect love…. I have nothing to fear, for God’s perfect love castes out fear. That is the truth.

1 John 4:16-18 richly explains God’s love and how our faith grows as our trust and knowledge of God’s love increases. It also speaks the truth that perfect love expels all fear.

If you struggle with a fear that God does not love you then memorize Romans 8:38-39
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from His love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Understand God loved first and he is the source of all true love. True love flows from God to us; out to others and back to God.

Why are we called to risk exposing our hearts? It’s because God did!
1 John 4:7-12
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God--for God is love.
God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us.

Romans 13:8
Pay all your debts, except the debt of love for others.

So, why love others when a heart can be broken?
Have you had your heart broken by another person? It’s tragic, it hurts, and it’s a big deal. I understand that. Now we can take all that hurt to God, or we can try to hold on all of it, which will lead to more pain, a longer period of suffering, and a stagnation of love for God and for others. Get rid of it by surrendering your broken heart and all your hurt to God.

Again, understand that’s what God is willing to do for us…What if God had been worried and unwilling to allow us to break his heart? We would have never gotten past the first few pages of the Old Testament….Right when Adam and Eve were disobedient and ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And again, next time it rains, look for the rainbow and what it represents….

We all have broken God’s heart, and God loves us so much he sent his Son, Jesus Christ to us….Christ had his body, his blood, his life and his heart broken for each one of us. He’s willing to go all the way, exposing his heart for us.

Go rent and watch “The Passion of the Christ,” and ask yourself in God loves you even when you break his heart…….Yes, yes, yes, with every whipping, and with every blow of the hammer onto the nails in his feet and his hands…. YES, He loves you, even when it hurts to do so!

Yes, God loves us; he will never leave us and he will never forsake us.

How can we see if we really do love others?
Remember Godly love is not sugar-coated niceness to one another (That’s more like Valium or Xanax medications). Godly love is a genuine concern that will not depart from God’s truth.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Gap Analysis:

Am I patient—in my relationships with others? I imagine they have been more patient with you then you realize…..I know that is true of the people in my life.

Am I kind—towards others and not differentiating if they are my friends, co-workers, or enemies?

Am I jealous of what others have? Or jealous over what I think I deserve?

Am I boastful or proud over the things I have, or say, or do?
God clearly warns against this throughout the bible. Pride leads to a nasty fall…Pride is the root of so many different sins and pride is what caused the angel Lucifer to become Satan.

Am I rude to others—Do I give them the attention and respect they deserve?

Do I demand my own way with others—my way or the highway….

Am I irritable toward other’s imperfections, habits, personal traits?

Do I keep a record of all the times someone has wronged me?
I am happy to write that this morning I threw my list away, and even deleted my back-up files on my computer. So I don’t have any records of when anyone of you has wronged me….yeah right.

Am I glad when an injustice falls on someone I dislike? Do I rejoice when God’s truth wins out?
Romans 12:9-10
Don’t just pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Stand on the side of the good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

Do I give up on others when they fail me, disappoint me, or hurt me?
Am I saying, “You’ve gone too far, I can’t love you now”?

Do I lose faith in others? “Yep, they’ll fail me again, what’s new.” “Sure, I trust them….I trust them about as far as I can throw them.”

Am I always hopeful for others….Do I pray and desire the best for them? Do I encourage them in anyway?

Do I endure in my love through every circumstance in my life like Christ has done for me?
Matthew 5:43-48 tells us to love our enemies…
Colossians 3:12-14 says we are to clothe ourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Allowing for others faults and to forgive those who have offended you….to love others and love is what binds us together in perfect harmony.

John 13:34
So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

Ask yourself: Do those close to me know they can fail and do foolish things, yet I will not falter in my love for them? That is what God has done, and it is what God is asking of us.

Love assumes the best about others, and when it is less than best… you choose to believe the offense was unintentional and regardless to forgive unconditionally. Furthermore to endure all things…practicing the same unconditional love towards others that Christ gives to you.

So how might you expose your heart to one another? You might want to try the following:
Love one another
Be kind to one another
Forgive one another
Forebear one another in love. That’s putting-up with a difficult person.
Teach one another
Admonish one another—warning through instruction
Comfort one another
Submit to one another
Serve one another
Receive one another—welcome and take a special interest in one another
Point one another to God—as our source and model of what love is.

What’s love got to do with it? EVERYTHING!

Luke 10:27 tells us to Love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (it must not be tough otherwise we wouldn’t need to use our strength); and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

It has never been a problem to love ourselves….that is why Christ says to love others---as ourselves….we do that quite naturally. How often do we look in the mirror, or in our mind and say “Who loves ya, I do.” We are full of self-love…too much so and the Bible repeatedly warns against it. Self-love leads quite often to pride.

Who’s your neighbor….the people you live around, work around, or otherwise pass in your life…..Make your neighborhood as big as you can….stretch your understanding of what a neighborhood is.

When the church operates out of God’s definition of love we are fitted together perfectly, each doing its own special work helping the other parts to grow so the whole body of Christ is healthy and growing and full of love (Ephesians 4:16).

As I learn to be patient and kind, as she learns not to be jealous, boastful, proud or rude, as he learns to not demand his own way, as I learn not to be irritable and so on….we become the church, the body of Christ, that never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

YES, Love is much more than a second-hand emotion.

Through love, God exposed his own heart and allowed it to be broken for each of us, and we should be willing to risk it all for love. We need to use and expose our hearts….willing to be broken or otherwise spent.

Ephesians 5:2
2Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice to take away your sins. And God was pleased, because that sacrifice was like sweet perfume to him.

Understand that because God is love, all our interactions with one another are to be motivated by love, expressed in love, and acted in love.

My prayer for each of you reading this blog:
From Ephesians 3:14-21
When I think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.