To Love = To Protect & Provide!
“Well if you love me you’d let me!”
“Well then you would not be protecting and providing for me.”
“Well everyone’s doing it!”
“Then you should have no problem finding a partner then!”
Is an age-old debate – though it was very well (perfectly) defined by Jesus Christ when he willingly went to the cross for us freely to forgive mankind for his many sins.
Are we to love PEOPLE as we love GOD? No! We love God with all our heart mind and soul! We are expressly commanded NOT to love people that way when The Bible tells us nothing is to come before God who is perfect.
We are commanded in the Bible to; love others as you love yourself! So how do we love ourselves? If we truly care about the vessel and soul gave us we nurture (provide for) our own body mind and soul to maturity by caring, physically (food), mentally (comfort) and spiritually (The Word) and THIS is how we are commanded to love others – as we do ourselves!
Does this mean we are condoning people to ‘love’ selfishly over themselves as if that were possible) – i.e lovers of pleasure more than God? No that is clearly wrong to ‘love’ selfishly! The word used in the ‘last days people will be lovers of self’ passage is philautos. This means a strong friendship type of love – autos means ‘self’. But when it says love yourself as you love your own bodies – it uses the word agape – a giving love!
Now when we fly in a plane we hear; “First put your oxygen mask on and then your child” – otherwise you may both die! So sort your own fleshly desires out first? – no – sort out your spiritual life first (the plank in your own eyes) then you can remove the the speck in your brothers eyes!
If you do not love yourself according to Josh’s observant daughter, then boy, your neighbor (or your wife or your husband or your kids) will sure have real problems loving you! See the video by Josh McDowell below for a great insight into the foundations of love and what we need to get right first before we can be loved properly by others and we can properly love someone else.
I’ll let Josh explain the real meaning of love and how to do it much better than I can…
