Love, Generally

A friend of mine was working on an essay about love and modern life last night, and it reminded me of what I consider to be the most accurate and Biblical definition of love. It comes from the pen of Reformed theologian James Orr:

"Love, generally, is that principle which leads one moral being to desire and delight in another, and reaches its highest form in that personal fellowship in which each lives in the life of the other, and finds joy in imparting himself to the other, and in receiving back the outflow of that other's affection unto himself"

This definition combines both the agape (servant love/forsaking all things for the betterment of another) and a more Piper-esque hedonistic (sacrificial love is good for me because it fulfills my joy) elements. Indeed, one can say that because one's true joy is found in another, then the lover will be influenced to preform sacrifical agape love.

It's like the parable of the man who found a great treasure hidden under the field and sacrificially sold all that he had to gain that treasure. Love has a hedonistic and 'selfish' motive, to use that term. I'm not talking about the kind of selfish un-Godly love that seeks a sensual or material gain. That is the kind of love that Barth says that "does not have its roots in self-denial, but in a distinctively uncritical intensification and strengthening of natural self assertion." Self-assertion is the enemy of love. Love isn't selfish. What we are talking about is having joy in seeing the beloved joyful. It's one thing to be seeking your own in love and a total other to be seeking joy in another person. This is precisely the esscense that Orr captures in his definition. Love isn't about making me happy..it's about being happy because my greatest desire in the world is to see whoever it is that I love be happy and exalted.

In light of that then, do we truly love Christ like that? What of our friends or family? I say very rarely if ever. I know that I don't, and it's quite distressing. I recall Peter's love for Christ. How can we be like that? The only way I know how to is to focus on what Christ has already done: the cross. His forgiveness of sins is our most valuable treasure. This leads us to love Him, but we must remember that only He can give us love for His name. So focus on the cross and pray. We would do well to remember that.