5 Ways to keep your love tank full

If you think this is a post about sex or romance, then your understanding of love is twenty-first century Western and not first century biblical. Sorry, thought I’d break the bad news first!

Westerners of this century almost always associate love with romance or sex. Not affection or friendship or that tough enduring virtue that the Bible calls agape. That probably helps at least partly to explain the confusion over gender and sexuality that has assumed so much importance in public life. But that’s another story.

“Love, love, love” sang the Beatles. “Love, love, love, love” taught Jesus. Love God (Matthew 22.37). Love your neighbour (Matthew 22.39). Love one another (John 13.34-35). Love your enemies (Luke 6.35).

It’s pretty comprehensive. Neighbours and enemies cover a wide spectrum, and as C.S. Lewis once remarked often they are one and the same person!

It is simple. It’s not hard to understand. But it’s not easy either. We sometimes find it hard to love even those we love!

How do you keep you “love tank” full?

Firstly, remind yourself of what love looks like.

Jesus is the greatest and best example of someone who showed perfect love. In fact He is the only example of someone who showed perfect love.

John 13 provides us with special insight into the love of Christ. Verse one says “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

What follows next is extraordinary. Jesus takes off his outer clothing, wraps a towel around His waist and begins to wash His disciples’ feet. This must have been such a shock to the disciples, for this is the kind of task reserved for a slave. Peter’s reaction reveals just how shocking this was to the disciples. The promised Messiah was washing their feet.

After He has finished, Jesus explains that He has set an example for them to follow (vv.14-16).

And then in verses 34 and 35, He gives His disciples a new command: love one another as I have loved you.

His love is our standard.

In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul sets out some aspects of love:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, 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” (1 Corinthians 13.4-8).

Secondly, remember and meditate on how much God loves you.

John says:

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4.10-11)

Thirdly, restore love to a place of priority in your life.

1 Corinthians 13.13 highlights the eternal worth of love. It really is that important!

Fourthly, recognise the importance of encouraging relationships.

Your love tank will permanently run on empty if all of your relationships are ones in which you are constantly giving love and encouragement.

The writer to the Hebrews stresses the importance of continually spending time in a spiritually hot and healthy environment:

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10.24-25)

Finally, rely on the Holy Spirit.

We cannot love like Jesus loved in our own strength. Love is a fruit of the Spirit:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love…” (Galatians 5.22).

It’s through the Spirit’s power that we are enabled to love others.

It’s hard to argue with the importance the New Testament places on love.Let’s leave the last word with Paul:

“And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13.13 AMP)

 

Connecting a disconnected world

In mid 2014 the Office for National Statistics released some research that indicated that Britain is the loneliest country in Europe. We’re less likely to know our neighbours and less likely to have strong friendships than people in other nations in the EU. Consequently, many people have no-one that they can rely on in a crisis.

The impact that loneliness can have on mental health is serious. A study by the University of Chicago suggests that it is twice as harmful for the elderly as obesity and  almost as great a cause of premature death as poverty.

It would be a mistake however to think that loneliness only affects the elderly. In 2010 the Mental Health Foundation discovered that loneliness was of far greater concern to 18-34 year olds than over 55’s.

If you are analysing the figures you might be thinking the obvious solution is to be aged 35-54 as that age group is clearly the most connected! I suppose that is one way to look at it! However, the hard fact remains that we live in a society that has more means of communication than any in history and yet less of a sense of community.

Sadly, people can be lonely in church as well. They can feel disconnected and isolated. There can be all sorts of reasons for that and there is no quick fix cure for the problem. Loneliness is a challenge for the church as well. And a church that is serious about reaching a society in which, according to research, loneliness has reached epidemic proportions, will be forced to think about how it connects people, how it builds a real sense of community. Otherwise we are just reflecting what is going on in the world instead of transforming relationships within the life of the kingdom.

I would suggest that part of the response of the church is not simply in developing new strategies for connecting people, though some sort of strategic thinking is required. It really goes much deeper than that. The solution lies in rediscovering the true nature of the church, the church as Jesus intended it to be.

So what sort of church did Jesus – and does Jesus – want to build?

Clearly there are many answers to that question. Just as a building is more than a wall or a foundation or a roof, so there are many different facets to the church.

However, right at the heart of church is relationship. Jesus’ command to His disciples “ A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.“ (John 13.34) is a statement that should shape the whole of church life. These few words reveal so much about what Jesus had in mind for His church.

Firstly, as noted above, church is essentially about relationship. Relationship with God. And relationship with people. It’s about one another.

Secondly, love is the quality that is brought to that relationship. Church is not meant to be a loose connection of people. More a strongly connected company of people who have genuine care, concern and respect for each other.

Thirdly, that love has the love of Jesus for its example: “as I have loved you”.

Paul clearly grasped what Jesus was after and it shaped not only the churches he established but the way he ministered as well:

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, ⁸ so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. 1 Thessalonians 2.7-8

God is looking for a church that will live in His love and manifest his love. Society is crying out for true community. Rediscovering church as Jesus intended it to be might just be one important key to reaching a lonely society and helping it to discover true acceptance and belonging.

“We believe in God the dysfunctional Father”

I was driving home late in the evening after a meeting. As usual, I switched on the radio and tuned into 5 Live, probably in the hope of catching some sports’ headlines.

Instead, I found myself listening to a debate on pornography. Initially it was quite encouraging listening to people make powerful arguments against pornography, people who were neither openly Christian nor religious. Then a man phoned in and what he said shook up the comfortable consensus of condemnation. He explained that he did not think pornography was in any way harmful. After all, he argued, it is perfectly normal for most blokes at some time in their lives to view porn.

It wasn’t that argument, however, that caused the shock. He went on to reveal that he had introduced his teenage son to pornography and viewed it with him.

You can imagine the reaction. No-one came to his defence. Everyone was quick to question the responsibility – or lack of – of his actions. Exposing his son to pornography, in the minds of those taking part in the discussion and in my mind as well, was an irresponsible and reckless thing to do as a father.

No-one would ever say that God is an irresponsible Father. In fact some might not even have read this far because of the title of this post. Let me say clearly that I do not believe God’s fatherhood is dysfunctional or his fathering irresponsible, but the way we think about God and the way we think about how he relates to us can make Him look like an irresponsible or dysfunctional father.

How we believe God feels about and reacts to our behaviour reveals how we really see God’s fatherhood.

In our reaction to an overemphasis in the past on God’s role as judge and as a result of our rediscovery of the intimate love of Abba Father, we seem to find it hard to say that though God is pleased with us as we are, he is not always pleased with what we do. For some, the last clause of the previous sentence spells a return to cold religion or harsh legalism. I want to suggest, however, that it marks progress further into the deep and true love of God.

I think we can get ourselves into a bit of a spiritual fix because we interpret God’s love as simply affection. God’s love is more than that. God’s love is affection plus direction.

We know that God has lavished His love on us. However, if we see that as simply a matter of affection it potentially alters our image of Father God:

God becomes an incompetent Father. If God just allows us to carry on in sin without making any attempt to direct us otherwise, it might suggest that He doesn’t have the parenting skills needed to help us mature into productive, faithful disciples.

Or it turns God into an uncaring Father. What earthly father, would turn a blind eye if his child was behaving in a self destructive manner? Even the dad who encouraged his teenage son to view porn did so because he had been deceived into believing it wasn’t harmful. God doesn’t turn a blind eye to our self destructive behaviour. He gives us direction, through His Word and His Spirit, both often mediated through his people.

Perhaps even more seriously, it might make God out to be a co-dependent heavenly Father. One aspect of co-dependency is that we become so preoccupied with the needs of others that we neglect our own needs. God doesn’t have needs in the way that we do. However, if we don’t add direction to affection in the divine love equation, it can look like God is so desperate to retain our affection that he overlooks his own glory.

God provides direction as well as affection. He isn’t an incompetent Father. He knows what He is doing:

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phillippians 1.6).

He’s not uncaring. He really does care, in fact He cares enough to upset us and cause us temporary grief in order to direct us into patterns of life that are productive rather than destructive:

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death (2 Corinthians 7.10)

And He’s certainly not co-dependent!

God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12.10-11)

Let’s never forget that God’s eternal love for us is made up of affection and direction.

“We believe in God the Father…”

Long term love

Some recent research has compared the brain size of young children raised in different kinds of environments. It revealed that children who enjoyed a strong nurturing environment in their earlier years had a larger hippocampus (the area of the brain important for learning, memory and stress responses) than those who had not received such nurture. This kind of nurture, the study discovered, sets children up for life. They tend to do better at school and are more emotionally developed than their peers who have not the same kind of nurture in their backgrounds.

Reading this you might be tempted to think that because of your background you have no hope whatsoever! Well, according to the apostle Peter we are redeemed from an empty way of life (1 Peter 1.18) – and that includes a love-starved background.

Love matters. Not just sporadic feelings of affection, but ongoing love or long term love.

Love is absolutely foundational to the Christian life. God is love. God so loved the world. Love one another as I have loved you. But the greatest of these is love. You won’t turn over many pages of the New Testament without reading about love.

Even some of those ministries (and perhaps ministers!), whom some would not associate with love, are love obsessed. Paul, that in-your-face apostle who wasn’t short of courage or afraid of a fight, could describe his ministry like this:

As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, 7 but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. 8 We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. 1 Thessalonians 2.7-8

It’s this kind of love that sets us up for real change. Important as teaching and outreach and spiritual disciplines all are, we need to pursue them in a context of the nurturing love of God and in a nurturing church environment. In fact, Paul indicates that we grow truly in Christ only when that kind of nurturing environment is secured:

I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.2 My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2.1-3

Encouraged in heart. United in love. Nurture. That’s what sets you up to know Jesus in a fuller and richer way.

When it comes to this kind of love we are both givers and receivers. When we are open enough to receive love and committed enough to give love, we will kind the satisfaction of both being a blessing and enjoying new dimensions of spiritual life ourselves.

And it’s that kind of love that brings people to Christ. I am inspired by my friend Paul’s journey to faith which entailed amongst other things five years of faithful witness by the Salt and Light team. Five years. Long term love.

D.L. Moody, when talking about winning people to Christ had one simple answer: love them in. I would add: and when they’re in, keep loving them. Love will keep them. Long term love, that is.