Love is an Action First That Leads to Feeling
Dear Greystone Champions,
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Philippians 2:3-4 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
When people say, "Why don't we live together? Why do we need to be married? I love you. Why do I need a piece of paper to show you that love?" If you define love as feeling, that's right. That's not what the Bible ever means when it means love. Biblically, if somebody says," I love you, but I don't want to marry you." What they mean is, "I don't love you that much." There's no way around that. A person who says, "I love you, and I want to marry you," loves you more than the person who says, "I love you, but I don't want to marry you." Love by definition biblically is a commitment. It's the ability to make an exclusive and a permanent commitment. When somebody says, "I don't need a piece of paper to show that I love you," yes you do! If you love a person the way the Bible says that two people are supposed to love one another in order to share their lives together, it means that you have no problem making a legal permanent exclusive commitment to them.
At some point love is simply a decision to serve somebody and be committed to somebody regardless of your feelings and regardless to how that person acts. The person attracts you, there are a lot of things that you like about them, you have fun together, but at a certain point, you simply make a decision that you are going to love this person. Your feelings will always come and go. The problem is that a lot of people don't get married because they're sure that if this is the one, "My feelings will never ebb." If this is the one, then I will just know that it's the one because I'll never have any problem. I'll never look at that person and feel," Ugh!" I'll never look at that person and feel, Yak! I'll never look at that person and find a problem there. I'll always feel like giving myself to them. You will wait until Hell freezes over if you wait for that.
Love is an action first that leads to feeling, it's not a feeling that leads to an action.
Champions, have a great day and week!-David Vining
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