Tuesday

Love Is a Choice

Today we've bought into this myth that love is uncontrollable, that it's something that just happens to us; it's not something we control. In fact, even the language we use implies the uncontrollability of love. We say, "I fell in love," as if love is some kind of a ditch. It's like I'm walking along one day and bam! - I fell in love. I couldn't help myself.

But I have to tell you the truth - that's not love. Love doesn't just happen to you. Love is a choice and it represents a commitment.

There's no doubt about it, attraction is uncontrollable and arousal is uncontrollable. But attraction and arousal are not love. They can lead to love, but they are not love. Love is a choice.

You must choose to love God; he won't force you to love him (Deuteronomy 30:20). You can thumb your nose at God and go a totally different way. You can destroy your life if you choose to do that. God still won't force you to love him. Because he knows love can't be forced.

And this same principle is true about your relationships: you can choose to love others, but God won't force you to love anyone.

I'm having a strange week, really. Might've been that mafia thing last night/early this morning.

I really like how this devotional points out that "falling in love" is complete bs, and in reality, we CAN choose who to love and who to not love.
God loves all of us, and he shows that in the little things in our lives as well as through the crucifixion of Jesus, his Son.
Yet, even when we should strive to be like him, he's still giving us a choice.
He chose us,
Deuteronomy 14:2
"For you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
But he also gave us a choice,
Matthew 4:19
"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will send you out to fish for people."

However, I think that even though God gave us a choice, we should still strive to love [and not be pretentious about loving our enemies].

Recently, I asked this question:
"Why did God put the tree of good/evil in the garden of Eden?"
Free-will, and I think that is what I thought about while reading this devo. He gives us the choice of loving him and making decisions for ourselves.

He cannot force you to love him, or that wouldn't be considered love.
In any relationship, both know and control what their feelings are for eachother.
We know that God will always love us, but do you love him back?
This also applies to loving our neighbours as well.
I'm pretty sure there is that one person that you think you never come to love, it's up to you what you'll think of him/her in the future.
As the devo mentioned, you do not just all of a sudden "fall in love". Love is controllable and is decided by you.

Okiee, good night guys.
~Audrey~

Btw, who's watched catching fire yet? I haven't watched it YET

God doesn't want you to assume that love is something you can't control. It is something we choose. People usually think that arousal and attraction, which is something that is difficult for us to control, is love. But it's not. It can lead to it, but it isn't love. God doesn't want to force us to love him, because he knows that we are giving him fake love. He wants us to love him truly from our heart. Also other people around us. We shouldn't be forcing love to them, because they will figure out that we are showing fake love to them. So, we should show love that we aren't forced to show, but love that chose to share with others. That way, we can build a true relationship with them.

Ahhh. I can't think. Not a great day for me. Umm. I agree with this. I think the word "love" is thrown around too carelessly. When a girl says "byee, ily" to someone, I think most of the time they don't actually LOVE that person. Especially when a guy says to his girlfriend "I love you" a week into dating... I dont know for sure, but I dont think thats real love either. This message's most important point for me is that I never have an excuse to not love someone because it's my own choice whether or not to love them- its not theirs. We can't ever say oh I just CANT love this one person because we can control how we feel about them and we have the ability (through God) to choose to love them. Theres a lot of people that I really dislike in my life and the thought of being able to stand, much less love them has never occurred to me. This message is hard for me to apply to my life, especially today because there are people who I just think are impossible for me to love right now. I guess I'll have to pray about that because I'm never going to be able to do this on my own

I feel that love is a feeling that a lot of people in today's society misuse and just use carelessly when they may not mean it. I think that something all of us need to realize is that love isn't something that is uncontrollable and just an instantaneous feeling that we can feel at any given moment. And as hard as that may sound for some of you lovebirds, love is being portrayed badly to what society and media wants us to believe, and love is not really how they portray it. Although it may feel that way because of your attraction and arousal towards some, love is a completely different thing. Love is a CHOICE, and we need to realize that God gave us all a choice to love Him and others. He did not require us to love Him, nor did He force us to love Him. He gave that decision to us. But with that being said, I feel that we should all try to love God with all that we can, because of everything he has done for us and how great, amazing, powerful and mighty He is. As well, we should try to love our neighbors as well, just as God loves us. It may be hard at first but loving everyone goes a long way, and is beneficial to yourself and to others, and most importantly, it is pleasing to God.

1 Peter 1:22  Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart

                                 

So I guess this devo sort of talks about how we do nothing to better our relationship with God and we constantly ask God to make us love him more. I mean, we pray "Motivate us to love you." While that's the independent decision that we have to make. We basically tell God, "do the work for me." As ridiculous and plain out wrong it is, we do that. That's not to say that God doesn't gift faith, but rather that what we do with our faith is in our hands. If God gives us a responsibility, arguably a privilege, then we should be carrying out that task of loving Him more ourselves, rather than praying for it to occur. I mean, if God breaks the box that we're inside, we should do everything we can with the infinite amount of space we have access to, but not ask for something ridiculous like growing bigger in width and length without compensation of height.

Point is: when we want something like a greater love for God, asking God to take care of it is God planting the seed and us reaping what He sowed. We should reap what we sow ourselves, and be thankful with the seeds already given by God.

I think that the word love is misunderstood in a lot of ways, and therefore is misused. Love is a fruit of the Spirit, and rather than a feeling, it's an action.
If you can control your actions, you can control your love, which is why I agree with this devo that loving someone is a choice. Needless to say there will be certain people that are very easy to love and others that are more difficult to love, but nonetheless, love is still a choice that we can make.
So then what does love look like?
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
The reason why we associate love with pure feelings is because love generally tends to come out from those feelings, but it still isn't the feeling itself. We choose to love God because he loves us, and has shown us what love is. Out of His love comes grace and mercy and forgiveness and protection and many other things.

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.