Love is a choice. You choose who you love. When we read 1 Corinthians 13 and Paul is describing love to the Corinthians, there is nothing there about feelings, emotions, passion or liking. Everything Paul describes is deliberateness, purposefulness, and commitment: love is commitment. It is not led by emotion, and it is not led by passion. It is deliberate, purposeful, and not accidental. This idea of falling out of love is untrue: people do not fall out of love, they just choose to no longer love each other. This is one reason why dating is never found in Scripture and why it is unbiblical: because dating teaches nothing about commitment. As Dr. Voddie Baucham says, “dating is only practice for divorce.” What’s more: this idea of finding “the one” is ludicrous. There’s no such thing as The One. If we each had one specific person we were supposed to marry, and no one else, and if we messed up and married the wrong one, then we messed everything up for everyone else. For instance, if Jimmy was supposed to be with Jillian and Mark was supposed to be with Vanessa, but Jimmy marries Vanessa, then Mark cannot truly be happy because the person he was meant to marry has been taken. If someone messes up and marries the wrong person, then none of us are actually marrying the right person. Also: love is not about beauty or looks. Beauty fades. Looks fade. And love is not about feelings or emotions; feelings and emotions are not always existent at every time of day or every day of the week. If love was about beauty, then we’d divorce as soon as beauty fades. If love is about feelings, then we’d divorce as soon as the passion and emotions are gone. These ideas of love are completely foreign to Scripture. Jesus does not love His bride because she is beautiful or because she makes Him feel good: He loves His bride because He has chosen her and He has chosen to love her; He is purposeful and deliberate in loving her. When we read Scripture, what we see is that love is an act of the will; you choose who you will love and you pursue them and commit to them. You do NOT decide to be with someone because of how they make you feel or because of how they look. You decide to be with someone based upon their character. Here is how the correct order is: You look for someone who has Godly character compared to Scripture. You look for someone who meets the definition of Godly womanhood or Godly manhood, who meets the criteria that Scripture gives for Godliness. Scripture tells us that if we find a woman or a man who is truly Godly, we are not to let them go - we are to hold on to them and we are to pursue them. After Godliness, look for quirks and habits and personality style. If you pursue a man or woman who is truly, truly Godly and who has quirks you like, then the emotions and passion will come naturally - you have just set everything up for emotions and passion to manifest. And if you pursue what you are supposed to pursue in a man or a woman, you will ALWAYS find them beautiful. You choose who to love, and you commit yourself to them. As a woman you look for a man who can lead you in Godliness and who can disciple you, who can teach you and mentor you in Scripture and who will fulfill his role as a prophet, priest, provider and protector for you. You look for a man who knows his Bible backwards and forwards, who knows doctrine and church history. If a man cannot lead you in Scripture and cannot fulfill his role as prophet or priest, if he cannot truly disciple you in the Bible and teach you Scripture and lead you in Godliness, and if he does not do that, you have no business being with him. As a man you look for a woman who meets the criteria of Proverbs 31, who is modest, who is humble, who is submissive, who is Godly, who knows her Bible, who fulfills her Scripturally mandated gender role of being quiet in the church, she does not seek to lead men. She desires for you to lead her; she desires for you to teach her; she desires for you to be her prophet, her priest, her provider, and her protector. She understands what is important and her focus is truly on the eternal instead of the temporary. If a girl is not like this, if she is not truly, truly Godly when exposed to Scriptural truth, you have no business being with her. Christians are not to be with those who are not Christians; this is sin. We are to be with those with who we can fully represent the relationship between Christ and the Church. If you find a Godly man or a Godly woman, do not let them go. Make them marry you as quick as you can, because such man or such a woman is incredibly rare. Get this idea out of your head that there is only one specific person you are meant to marry. Get this idea out of your head that you’re going to just be overwhelmed with emotion the first time you see them and so on and so forth. There are exceptions, yes. However, what you are looking for is Godly character - not Godly character according to you or your justifications or your rationalizations, but Godly character according to Scripture. Once you find someone like this, do not let them go. Find a person who is truly Godly, commit to them, fulfill your Scripturally mandated gender role, ask God to bless your relationship, and the emotions and everything else will come. Loving someone is not accidental - lust and unhealthy infatuation can be. Love is a choice. Find someone who is truly Godly. Choose, commit, and never let them go. Ever.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 15:07:26 +0000
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