LOVE: EMOTION VS. DECISION- BY GREG ELKAN

1 Corinthians 13 is popularly known as “The Love Chapter of the Bible”. In this brief passage, Paul outlines the true nature and character of God’s kind of love.

In it, he mentions that _“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love isn’t jealous. It doesn’t sing its own praises. It isn’t arrogant. It isn’t rude. It doesn’t think about itself. It isn’t irritable. It doesn’t keep track of wrongs. It isn’t happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth. Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up”_ (1 Cor 13:4-8 GW).

This chapter is effectively the Bible’s definition of love. However, when you compare this definition with the world’s definition, you will notice a glaring difference: whereas the world defines “love” as an emotion, that concept is conspicuously absent in this passage. The Believer’s love is not an emotion or a feeling, the Believer’s love is a _decision._

This is a core distinction between the love of the Believer and human love. The love I show to my neighbour has absolutely nothing to do with how I got out of the bed this morning, the state of my heart or my bank account, or what they did to me yesterday! As Believers, our out-of-this-world kind of love functions independently of our emotions. 

Our love is God’s kind of love. When Jn 3:16 said _“God so loved the world...”_ it didn’t mean God looked down at humanity wallowing in its own filth of sin and said, _“Awww, see these cutie-patootie weaklings destroying themselves, let me go save them.”_ No! It was a rational, decisive act of His will. Feelings had nothing to do with it.

That is why His love for His children (those who accepted that offer of salvation) does not wax and wane according to their rising and falling behaviour. It remains ever constant. God’s love for the Believer is based on something outside of the Believer, it is based in His decision to _never leave them nor forsake them._(Heb 13:5).

So, when the Bible instructs you to _“Love your neighbour as yourself,”_ (Lev 19:18, 34; Rom 13:8-9; Gal 5:14; 6:2; Jas 2:8, etc.), it isn’t asking you to like to do it, or feel like it. It’s asking you to just do it, period. Because for us, love is not an emotion; love is a decision.

AMEN...

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

- Nigeria