Looking for love in all the wrong places?

Love
It's everywhere. We are a culture saturated with lov, or so we'd like to believe. We say we love our dog and our mom in the same breath. We say we love chocolate and our girlfriend in the same tone. We love God but we also love music.

Our culture has fallen in love with love.

1 Corinthians 13:4

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.

How much of this really describes us? I see impatience. Cold and jealous hearts. Big headed, rude, self-seeking people everywhere. Short tempers but a long memory. Evil hears that shun the truth. Seeiking to harm. Untrusting, callous, negative people who give up everytime it starts to get hot.

As humans: We're failures.

How important is love? Paul called it the greatest out of "faith, hope and love." (which, by the way, doesn't mean that faith and hope are not important, just not as important as love)

Did anybody else say anything about love? A man named Jesus did in Matthew 22:36:

36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Love God. Love everyone else. Pretty simple. But for something so simple, Jesus had to make it so hard, didn't He? He set the standard pretty high.

The Pastor at my church defined love as "the sacrifice of self for benefit of another." I'm talking about unconditional love. I'm talking about driving a nail through your own hand love. I'm talking about being brutally beaten for a crime you didn't commit to die on a cross you didn't deserve love.

Jesus set the standard on how to love.

To top it off, He said "Okay, now love like I did. Love everyone else like I loved you. Sacrifice yourself, like I sacrificed for you. Show them my love."

No. Don't find a cross and let someone sacrifice you. That's not what it means. Go out of your way to benefit someone else. Sacrifice your time and volunteer for ministry. If you're younger than me, volunteer in children's ministry. If you're older then me volunteer in teen ministry. If you're my age, go where you're called. Go where you're called no matter what age. Volunteer for the elderly. Volunteer for the homeless. Sacrifice your time. Time is more valuable than money. Money can always be earned. Time is limited.

I think it's just as important to take a look at what isn't love as it is to see what is love.

What isn't love? Well obviously all that's described in the paragraph after the first passage. What else? Is it just hate? Sure, hate has something to do with it, but hate just skims the surface. Hate is just a form of "unlove". A better term for "unlove" or the opposite of love is lust. When you hear that word I know your thoughts go right to sex right away. It's natural since that is how lust is used most often. But lust is much more than that.

Lust is the opposite of love. It's the sacrifice of another for benefit of self. Whenever you bring someone down with your words. Whenever you tell a joke that isn't appropriate. Whenever you cuss. Whenever you sin, you lust. You bring someone else down, you sacrifice them, to make yourself look better. You tell a joke to make yourself look cool in front of others. You utter profanities to get anger out. You sin and you sacrifice Christ for your benefit.

Hear me out, I'm almost done. We're gonna sin. It's a fact of life. I can't stop myself from sinning, I need the help and transforming power of Christ. But I refuse to beat myself up about it any longer.

I'm going to say something very bold and then I'm going to end it with one last thought. If you are beating yourself up about a sin that is constant in your life, or even a one time giving in, it is the same as saying right in front of Jesus' face, "I see that you died on that cross and I'm sorry for what I did, but you're death wasn't enough. Now I need the same punishment you got."

So what's the solution? How can we love others better? I don't know. We have to become more like Christ first before we can even begin to love others and right now we aren't cutting it. We need to be in the Word. We need to be in a "pray-without-ceasing" mentality. God has to have the wheel or else we're stuck driving. I don't know about you guys, but I don't know where I'm going. I don't even know how to drive my life. I don't want the wheel. I don't want control of the blinkers. I don't want control of the gas or the brake. I don't even want control of the radio.

God will drive. He'll steer you right. He'll steer you left. He'll tell you when to stop and when to go. He'll even tell you what to listen to. But you can't take back the wheel, because once you grab for it, you'll get it. And once you get it, God won't take it back until you give it back.