Love is a command, not just a feeling.

I stumbled upon a really interesting concept in my reading that really hit home.  In our society today, so many people dream of the "perfect love" or of "falling in love" or even of "love at first sight."  However, what causes so many relationships and lives to fall apart is the fact that we treat love like a feeling.  We think that in order to love, we have to have a certain feeling, and if we don't, there must not be any love there.  So many people go into a relationship or a marriage and expect the "feeling" of love to be there always, and as soon as it doesn't feel present they want to call it quits.  Love is NOT a feeling.  There are feelings that come along with it, but love is so much more than just that.

Often times, love is confused for attraction, lust, or a feeling of giddiness... Which may explain why relationships and marriages fail... as soon as the attraction is perceived to be gone, lovers get distracted by searching for something new to satisfy their fancy.  How is that love? How is that commitment?  If someone cannot control their desires to be faithful and self sacrificing, what does that show about them as a person?  Love is self sacrificing, not self seeking.  Love is not about satisfaction...if we base love only on what made us feel good, which some people do, we ruin ourselves.

Another common problem is anger.  When we are angry at someone, we like to hold it against them and use it as "evidence" against them every chance we get.  However, Love does not keep a list of wrongs... a great part of love is forgiveness.  If you are a Christian, you believe in the fact that love is a COMMAND from God.  We are to love all people, even those who do us wrong.  Sure, it might not feel great, but we must know that love is good, and that we CANNOT always base it on how we feel.   We must love our enemies, forgive them, and pray that they see that their ways are not right.

Christians and non-Christians alike will use 1 Corinthians 13 to describe love.  But how many times do we truly follow it or apply it to our lives?

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [2] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Something to think about.
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Recommended reading-
Edwin Louis Cole- "Maximized Manhood- A Guide to Family Survival." (Christian view on changing gender roles in our society.)