Love Is Not A Decision

When I first found out that this is what this week’s topic would be, I wondered why I had to be the vessel through which this teaching would be delivered. I had a lot of thoughts saying that I was not in anyway qualified but God doesn’t go after qualified people so I guess we are here today. What is love? I always defined love as a decision to overlook the wrong or flaws in someone and still choose to care about them. I was wrong.

Love is not a feeling, it is not an emotion and it is much more than a decision. It begins with a decision but that decision would never sustain it. Do you think rape victims can look in the face of their rapists and not feel hatred, no matter the choice they took to forgive and ignore, deep within the hatred and loathe would remain. Love is not a choice, love is God. You take the decision to accept love(God) and he helps you care deeply for every other person around you.

The two greatest commandment in the Bible are “love God” and “love your neighbor” but do you know we cannot love our neighbor until we have done two things:

• Love God: God is love and if you don’t have God and love him, you can never know what love truly is. You would keep on doing things that would hurt the future of others without the knowledge of that because of how good today is. The love of God does not think of today alone but also about tomorrow, about even 50 years from now. Just know that whatever you think is love is not love if God is not involved. If you look deeply you would realize that it is selfishness. When you love God, you can give up on a relationship though it hurts you or the other party at the present but you do it because you know staying is destroying the future and the destiny of the person you claim to love and only God can help you make that decision, one you can only make because you trust and love God and you trust his plans for you.

• Love Yourself: most people have heard the statement “love your neighbor as yourself”. You cannot love your neighbor if you do not love yourself. A lot of people are living in self-loathe, their self esteem is so down that they believe they are nothing; they hate everything about themselves. This is why the first step is to love God, God teaches you to love yourself, to love who and what he created you to be and for. You cannot love people “like” you love yourself when you don’t actually love you.

You may ask but if I love like I do myself, how can I give up my life for that person? That is a commandment that comes in the highest dimension of love. Anyone who loves their child or spouse or friend greatly would understand the feeling if something is about to happen and you know you can change but you would have to die but yet you are willing, why? Simply love.

I call it love unconditional selflessness. When you get to that dimension, you would find it extremely hard to even be able to sin, why? Most sins we commit hurt our those around us from stealing to lying to killing and even fornication(this hurts you both). But when you have gotten to this dimension of love, it is no longer a decision to not harm or hurt someone; it is no longer a decision to follow the commandment of God, it is now pure Instinct because the love is now in you that you would not hesitate to give up your life for that person. Listen to Jesus “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  This is indeed the greatest love one can ever show to anyone.

This is why love is not a decision; when it is still a decision, you are still just beginning on the ladder of love but the ultimate love is when it becomes a part of you – it becomes like breathing; your body knows how to inhale and exhale – It becomes who you are.