By Pastor Dan Mielke

Grace Baptist Church

Is love ruining the world? Could the intense hatred and anger in our society actually be a byproduct of love? In the name of love wars are started, and nations destroyed. In the name of love, policies are given, and policies changed, marriages are created and unfaithfulness is justified. In the name of love children are aborted and children are saved. How can love that leads to vastly different conclusions truly be love?

How can love lead to different conclusions? The problem of love is that love is at the core of all of mankind’s worst atrocities. All of mankind’s bloody history is a tribute to the wrong kind of love, the love of ourselves. As an example, Hitler loved himself, his fame, etc. In time his love was eventually unveiled by power, and the world suffered from his love.

The problem with mankind is not that he does not have love, but that he loves the wrong thing, himself.

Since man loves himself, he judges his actions on what he loves. Love becomes the ‘get out of jail free’ card to justify any act. This foundational starting point is why humanity is so wicked. Love cannot be the end all, otherwise all manner of evil and grotesqueness is supported by love.

Love alone cannot run a society, because when I love me more than you, even in a democratic society, I will learn that 51 percent of me can take from the 49 percent of you. Love without constraint will ensure slavery, promote bigotry, and segregate society faster than any other force. You see, love must have a regulator. Without an outside determiner of love, who is to say that a KKK member who loves his own race is not justified in hateful actions?

In order for love to thrive and actually accomplish the beauty inherent in it, it cannot be the mistress of mankind. Love must find its definition outside of the thing loving or else it will be constrained by the societal dictates of either the majority or the fittest. Unless it is defined by a higher source, love is ripped off of her lofty pedestal and drug through the mud.

Love must be defined from its source, and therefore Jesus must be the definer of love. The Apostle John said that proper love will flow from a right relation to God because, “God is love.” The love of God is defined by the person of God. Love is pure because God is pure. Pure love therefore must be submitted to the commands of God or else it is prostituted. Only when I submit my definition of love to God can I love in a way that is proper and truly selfless. It is only then that love does not start and end with my preference.

The Bible explains this digression of love and actually pegs it as humanity’s problem. A Jewish Christian writing to the capital of the Roman Empire, where love was defined as promiscuity and power, called out this problem. “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.” (Romans 1:21) Any action that I do, if not submitted to God’s definition, is a result of self-love. Like a virus that simulates a cell and destroys it, mankind’s love simulate is destroying its host.

But there is a cure. The cure is found in that God, the definer of love, chose to die for our anarchist love of self and through His sacrifice made a way that God could show His love toward mankind. The cure is rather simple. Repentance of our own ways and self-love (Acts 2:38) and acceptance of what Christ did (Eph 2:8-9). Many people do not want to submit themselves to God, because that would mean that they can no longer love themselves. We love ourselves too much to submit to God’s definitions, and therein lies the problem. For more on what the Bible says about this see the small book of 1 John.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” – The Suffering Savior