Decide to Love

 

Marriage 23

 

          There may not be a worse phrase in the English language than “fall in love.” In today’s post, I intend to prove that to you scripturally. More importantly, I want to permanently remove from your mind the validity of falling out of love with your mate.

          It is undeniable that a husband is emphatically told to love his wife. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. (Ephesians 5.25) Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. (Colossians 3.19) A wife is also instructed to love her husband. That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. (Titus 2.4) Yet I know what it is like to have spouses sit in my office and tell me, “I just don’t love her/him anymore.”

          This marriage-killing excuse is rational if love is something that happens to you by accident, a feeling that is produced in you by another person's actions. But such an approach to love, while widely held in our society, has no basis in Scripture. Love is not an accident. Love is not a reaction on your part to how likable or nice others are toward you. Love has feeling, but it is not a feeling. Love is an attitude of affection and giving on your part which you choose to extend to another. In short, love is a choice you can decide to offer to someone.

          If I am right, each partner permanently loses the right to say to the other, "I don't love you anymore," because that partner has become unlovable or someone else has become more lovable. If I am right, each partner permanently loses the justification for falling out of love.

          So why do I assert this? What is my scriptural support?

          I say this first because love is a decision of the will. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. (Psalm 18.1) The psalmist’s love for God was not based on his perception or knowledge of or reaction to God’s goodness; it was based on a decision of the will.

          I say this second because love is a command. Eight times in Scripture we are faced with the command to love our neighbor. Twelve times we are told to love one another. Additionally, husbands and wives are commanded to love each other. Indeed, the greatest commandments in the Bible revolve around mandates that we love. A command that is dependent on how another person makes you feel is nonsensical. Put another way round, if fulfilling the command to love is dependent on what another person does to make me feel something then that commandment is not a valid commandment; it is a suggestion. A command to be a command must only require God and me in order to fulfill it.

          I say this third because where God commands, He enables. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (II Timothy 1.7) Do not tell me you cannot love those whom God tells you to love. Tell me you do not want to anymore, that it is not enjoyable anymore, but do not tell me you cannot. The Holy Spirit gives us the wherewithal to obey these instructions just as He does other biblical mandates. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5.5) But the fruit of the Spirit is love. (Galatians 5.22)

          I say this fourth because God's love toward us is clearly not related to how lovable we are. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. (I John 3.1) God’s love for us is a bestowal, a choosing to love us, but to Israel in the Old Testament and to the church in the New Testament. Not a single individual reading this post will ever qualify to be loved by God; we do not qualify, we accept.

          I say this, fifth, because there is no example in Scripture of someone who stopped loving due to the recipient being unlovable. Love is mentioned 405 times in the Bible. If falling out of love is truly as prevalent as our society has trained us to think you would think it would be mentioned in there somewhere. But is is not. I cannot find one justified instance of anybody who actually loved someone not loving them anymore.

Lloys (l) and John R. Rice (r)

          Many years ago, Jack Hyles was being driven to a meeting. He was in the front passenger seat, and John R. Rice and his wife, Lloys, were seated in the back. Jack Hyles overheard the following snippet of conversation:

Lloys: John R., do you love me?

John R.: Yes

Lloys: Why do you love me?

John R.: Because God commanded me to.

Lloys: John R., that doesn’t turn me on.

John R.: But it won’t turn me off either.

          I suppose some readers may find that it strains credulity, but I do not. I have read Rice's books on marriage and the home; it tracks with their content. John R. Rice understood that the foundation of his love for his wife was not her physical attractiveness, her mental agility, her emotional brightness, or her spiritual fervor. His love for her did not depend on how well she kept the house, raised the children, or did the laundry. It did not depend on how tasty her cooking was, her response to his advances, or how well she managed the family budget. It depended instead on his willingness to be obedient to his Heavenly Father’s commands. It was thus a decision of his will.

          Love is a choice. Decide to love the one to whom you are married. Regardless of the circumstances.