Love is Not a Feeling

When God promised Abraham that he will become the father of all nations, that from his impotence and from Sarah’s barreness will emerge the sons and daughters as countless as the stars in the heaven, he never backed out on his word. There came Isaac. And the joy of the couple would have been immeasurable. Surely, it was the beginning of a promise that is yet to unfold.

When God asked Abraham to give up his son, to slaughter him and sacrifice him like a lamb, what on earth was God thinking? He gave a blessing, and out of nowhere he was taking it back. Abraham would have been distraught, confused and upset about the whole situation. But surprisingly, he was not. Willingly, he took his son up the land of Moriah, up the altar, ready for the sacrifice. Was he out of his mind?

I’d rather say not. Because more than the blessing is the relationship. More than the blessing was that door in his heart where his relationship with God dwelled. The relationship was more important than the blessing.

The story of Abraham teaches us about the greatest fruit that the Shepherd is asking from his flock: sacrificial love. This is not just plain and basic giving. We define sacrifice beyond that and there is a is a big difference that spells out giving from the word sacrificing. We give what’s left; we sacrifice until there’s nothing left.

Sacrificial love is the highest expression of love and John 3:16 spells it out for us. That God, Himself has manifested and is continuously manifesting the highest form of sacrifice. The cross has never lost its shine.

Love is not always a feeling. It never is. Feelings change. Feelings stop. Sometimes, feelings are forever stuck to being feelings. But unlike feelings, love is constant, stable, fixed. For love to become rock-solid, it has to become a decision.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before Jesus was about to be put on trial, he was praying. He was in agony. His fate was playing right in front of his eyes, his life fluttering like a moth about to be burned by the flames. And if what Jesus felt was no more than a feeling, he would have turned his back and say, “I don’t feel like being crucified tomorrow, Dad. Let someone else do it. I don’t feel like dying for these sinners.”

Imagine if Jesus actually said that. What would we become?

Again, it’s not just about the feeling; but about the decision. From the very beginning, it was Jesus’ decision to love us. Before God became human, he already decided to love us.

And as we receive the new meaning of love, we are obliged to manifest it to other people. Otherwise, God’s love disappears and we make it disappear (1 John 3:16). Learning to sacrifice is easier said than done but with the right motives and with the right heart, we are able to endure and to stand firm as we walk in love.

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