So What's Love Got To Do With It?

There was a Tina Turner song with this title, and as I sit here writing, it is playing in my head. What a cool song, but the lyrics are kinda sad, and don't paint love in such a great picture. I think what she was referring to though, and maybe unintentionally, was the "feeling" of love. Somehow there is this "loving" feeling that we think is synonymous with love, and if it goes away then so does the love...how sad.

This loving "feeling" is a love based on feelings, and those are not the most historically trusted sources if you know what I mean. Seriously, how dependent are you on your feelings? Do they dictate everything you do? I would presume that they don't, after all do you know what they call an employee that only works when they "feel" like it? Unemployed...get it?

Feelings have become our priority. How we feel is what we say motivates and we use to make decisions. And we have become a culture that somehow believes this emotional love "feeling" is what love really is, and I do not agree so much. Ok, I do not agree at all! Love is a commitment that even encapsulates, propagates, and even seeks those loving feelings. Nevertheless the feelings are not the core, and not how one can sustain a relationship.

There is only one thing that can sustain love, and that is commitment = in other words, right priorities. In every wedding I do I always remind the love-struck couple that at some point these feelings will fail them, that love will not sustain their commitment, but that their commitment can and will sustain their love. Simply put - feelings come and go, but we can choose how to act. Sometimes we have to choose to be loving even when we don't feel like it, just like in the same way we can choose to go to work when we don't feel like it. We can do this if our priorities are right.

Right priorities? It's your life so you get to determine your priorities, right? How's that working out for you? It isn't until we get our priorities right that we can have "right priorities". In other words we need to recognize what is most important, what is most valuable, and then apply this to our lives. What is most valuable to you? Your stuff, your family, career, hobbies...what? What about the One who made life possible? What about making God the priority? Where then does love fit?

Look at this verse:

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John 4:8 NIV

If God is our priority, and God is love, then we live out God as our priority by being loving. Not the flowery pastel movie love, but true, unclouded, confident, and over-the-top love. Using the biblical, unconditional love of God as the model. This love is how we hold onto our commitments, and it is how we get "right priorities".

So what's love got to do with it? I venture to say only everything...

...just sayin'

In His Grip,
Pastor Pat