“Love” is the most misused word in our language. It has been profanely used to advertise lust and to commercialize products on the market. The word “love” hardly conveys anything sacred or fine or holy to the minds of the masses.
But God has addressed His messages to us earth-dwellers out of a heart of love. And He wants to form such a heart of love within us! So He tells us what and whom to love, and how. He also tells us what and what not to love.
Almost 3000 years ago God said, “Hate the evil, and love the good” (Amos 5:15).
When God sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to share the life of us earth-dwellers, He sent many messages about love. Jesus showed that genuine love is expressed in obedience. “If a man love me, he will keep my words” (John 14:23). Now it is not so hard to love the lovely, or those who love us. But Jesus says, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?” (Matthew 5:44-46).
Love of self must not crowd out love for others. The neighbor will taste the flavor of your religion by your love. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:9, 10).
A special, divine love flows between Christians who are to regard one another as brethren of a common holy Father. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (1 John 3:14). This love is purified of carnal, lustful elements and self-seeking.
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again” (1 Peter 1:22, 23). It is not “put on” as a politeness or device. It is wholly refined of God.
Not only in and through all, but also over and above all must be the love reserved for God alone. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37-39). Such pure, wholehearted love as God requires cannot live in the same life with forbidden loves. Even legitimate things become forbidden when they interfere with devotion to God. One of these is the love of money: “For the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).
The all-inclusive message God has for us concerning forbidden loves is found in 1 John 2:15-17: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
When you think about it, isn’t most of today’s advertising calculated to arouse love of the world and the things in the world? The heart must be weaned away from the world, become “dead” unto sin, and “alive” unto God. These words from God speak plainly and painfully. Read them over and over. Measure yourself by them. Let them “sink down in your ears.” Let God deliver you from the bondage of fashion, culture, pleasure, ease, prosperity, self. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).
-by Harold Brenneman