True Love

How many of you have seen "The Princess Bride"?

I feel like it's such a classic movie, it is surprising to encounter someone who hasn't seen it. I showed it to my kids last year. They liked it, but I don't think there were as impressed as I was the first time I saw it. I think some of the humor was either outdated or just went over their heads.

There is one scene in "The Princess Bride" in particular which came to mind recently. Humperdinck has just tried to kill Wesley, and it is thought he succeeded. But Miracle Max (played beautifully by Billy Crystal) states, "He's only mostly dead." Then he works some magic and asks Wesley, "What you got here that's worth living for?" 

Wesley, barely alive, groans, "Truuuuue looooove."

True love like Wesley and Buttercup share is hard to find. In fact, I would hazard a guess that most of us spend a long time looking for true love and never find it. We love, sure, and we find friendships and relationships. But that kind of true love that only soulmates share? It's rare.

Or is it?

Could it be that what God offers us is the true love we seek? After all, Jesus left the throne of heaven to take on a mortal body, suffer and die in order for us to know His love. "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends" (John 15:13).

What is true love? The Bible defines true love in 1 Corinthians 13, the so-called "love chapter" often read at weddings and vow renewal ceremonies. Paul writes,

"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 account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." (vv. 4-8)

God is patient. (2 Peter 3:9)

God is kind. (Romans 2:9)

God does not envy, or boast. (God is a jealous God, but not envious. Zechariah 8:2)

God is not proud. (Philippians 2:8)

God is not rude nor self-seeking. (Mark 10:45)

God is not easily angered, and keeps no account of wrongs. (Psalm 103:8-12)

God takes no pleasure in evil but rejoices in the truth. (Proverbs 30:4-5)

God bears all things. (1 Peter 2:24)

God never fails. (1 Corinthians 1:9).

Who else could we say these things about?

What else is true love? True love is protective, though it cannot protect from everything without limiting free will. In this sinful, imperfect world, bad things happen all the time. Even the closest couples cannot protect one another from every harm that comes their way. But true love never leaves. As they say in marriage ceremonies, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and health, true love is there. 

This is the promise God offers. He does not always stop the bad things from happening in our imperfect, sinful world, but He is always with us. He never leaves us or abandoned us. He never stops loving us or caring for us or caring about us.

Could it be the love we’ve been seeking for all our lives is... God? Could He be our true love?

Many times we don’t believe we deserve it, and we are right. We don’t deserve it. The God of the universe, the One who created heaven and earth, the intelligent design behind everything we have ever seen or discovered or explored...  loves us? Loves you? Loves me? Knows our names and how many hairs are on our head?

Yes. Yes, He does. We don’t deserve it.  But He loves us because of who He is and who He created us to be: His children, sons and daughters made in His image.

Max Lucado has famously said, "God loves us just as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way." Is this true love?

Yes and no. True love doesn’t try to change you into someone you’re not. But... perhaps true love makes you a better version of yourself. Don't we see that in true love couples? Where the one makes the other a better person? Or, as we say, "brings out the best" in them? And vice a versa.

That’s what God’s love does to us. When we understand and accept His love and learn to love Him in return, it changes us from the inside out. His love changes our hearts and our motivations, and addresses our sin.

The world doesn't believe in God's love. It doesn't believe in God's love because God's people have not been very loving. In fact, in many cases, we have very publicly and very shamefully been incredible not loving. We've been hateful and have caused harm. It's no wonder the world sees Christians as judgmental and hypocritical and believes the stories we tell about God are lies. Because people who believe in a loving God would not be so full of hate.

And they're not wrong. On the contrary, I think the world has in many cases judged us correctly.

John, the "disciple whom Jesus loved", wrote this: "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen" (1 John 4:20).

It is God's love which changes hearts and minds. It is God's love which saves the lost. It is God's love the world needs.

But we can only share God's love, if we have received it ourselves. One verse prior John writes, "We love because He first loved us."

God loves us. He loves us in our sin. He loves us in our mess. He loves us when we spit on Him and hang Him on a cross. 

His love is free. Inclusive. Available.

But it must be accepted and received. After all, true love isn't pushy. It doesn't force itself on anyone.

True love waits (sorry, I couldn't resist throwing that in).

Once we receive this love, it should begin to change us. God begins to change us. So that we may move forward a changed person who can live out God's greatest ask of us: Love God and love others.

That's it.

It's that simple, really.

Love God and love others.

The world is waiting. Your neighbor, your co-worker, your friend, your family member.

They are waiting for true love.

Maybe it's time you introduce them.

Not by Bible-bashing or hating on their lifestyle or passing laws to regulate morality. None of that works in truly changing hearts and minds. None of that leads to salvation and eternal life.

The key to true change, to true salvation, to true eternal life?

Is the love of God.