When we tell someone we love them, do we put a disclaimer on it? If we are asked, “Why do you love me?”, is the answer ever, “Because you can cook,” “because you’re taller than me,” “because you can swim”? No, and I don’t think it would go over well. We should love not because of what someone can offer us, but because of who they are. At my church, we’ve had a couple of weeks of comments on the difference between being useful and being beautiful. If we love someone because they are useful, we view them as a means to an end. We may love them, but we love something else more and they are helping us achieve that. If we love someone because they are beautiful, they are our end. They are what we are pursuing. Now, I hope you know me well enough to know that I am not merely talking about physical beauty. I mean that we are attracted to them, drawn to them, because of who they are, not because of what they can do for us. Many times, I think our answer to “Why do you love God?” is “He died for me.” And don’t get me wrong. That’s awesome. But I think there is a deeper love that we find the more we get to know him. We find a beauty that we would pursue if He offered us nothing but Himself. And I am quite sure that would still be enough.
Thoughts?
Todd
Good thoughts Todd.
Your title reminded me of when I asked my husband if he would have
married me if I didn’t know how to cook.
He hesitated for a moment…and said yes, but it would have taken him
longer to make up his mind. J I’m not sure
if he was kidding or not.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) said that people should always be
valued and always treated as an end rather than a means to an end. (Sorry, but
what do you expect from someone with a history degree??)
We should never love people for what they can do for us, but
we should love them simply for who they are.
I’ve often thought about why some people accept God’s
salvation, is it because they love Him and desire a relationship with Him? Or
is it because they see Him as valuable and worthy of our love and
devotion? I think it begins with the
former and hopefully gets to the latter.
Maybe that’s often the case in human-human relationships too. Blessings to you and yours! Tess
Oops. I just reread this and realized that I’d failed to add something relevant. That’s what I get for responding to blogs when I’m supposed to be doing homework.
The “former” should be: Do we accept God’s salvation because it keeps us out of hell? Or do we accept it because we desire to be in relationship with Him?
Sheesh! I’m glad I came back and re-read this one. Since that didn’t make much sense .
Both are legitimate reasons to love Him in my opinion. I was in such a stinking pit…& this week after working with some non-Christians who are insisting on the drinking/party bands….I’m very grateful for my salvation/relationship with Jesus. They definitely need to accept Him for EITHER reason… I’m also thinking of the thief on the cross; he made the right choice.
Hello Joanne,
I agree. Our desire for what He can do for us is usually the beginning of our relationship with Him. But hopefully we get to where we simply desire Him.
Blessings, Tess
It’s funny that I have been asking myself these same questions! Why do I love God? Why do I love my husband and seven children? My perfect answer I guess would be because He first loved me. It’s so typically human though to need a reason to love and just because. God doesn’t love us because we worship Him but despite it. True agape has no because it only is.
“There is a deeper love that we find the more we get to know him. We find a beauty that we would pursue if He offered us nothing but Himself. And I am quite sure that would still be enough.”
I’ve found this is true–the more time I spend with Him the more aware I am of His beauty and the purity of His love. It is so amazing because it opens my eyes to see past the fabric and flesh of ordinary people to the beautiful image of God within them. It is the very character of God in people that attracts me the most–their kindness, passion, love, mercy, compassion. I want to spend time with people like this, get to know them, share life with them.
Perhaps this is the way God designed us, not only with an insatiable craving for fellowship with Him, but with an internal recognition system that draws us to others who reflect His beauty. We see the beauty and creativity of God in all of His creation, but the depth of His beautiful heart of love is so intoxicating, I wish I could simply jump in and stay there rather than splash around for a while. But it would probably be more than I could stand, too overwhelming for a mere mortal.
Imagine how thrilling life would be if we celebrated true beauty, the beauty of Christ, in each other . . . if we pursued knowing Him and each other more deeply . . . if we had eyes to see what He sees and love like He loves. That will be the joy and ultimate pleasure of eternity.
The beauty of Jesus draws us in…His anointing is like a magnet. The same is true of believers when they are full of His Spirit; they are truly beautiful, illuminated with Christ & being who they were created to be.
To me, this brings to mind, and, I think, gives a deeper meaning to the phrase ‘… know and love.’ When someone says of someone/something else that it is the one ‘we all know and love,’ there are two different kinds of relationships expressed, that I can see. The knowing is individual and special to each person involved, and relates to their unique relationship to the object of the loving. The loving, however, represents the bond common to all participants. It is the way that everyone involved loves that person/thing, despite the different ways they may know them/it, that makes them all one, in a sense. I believe this sense could be that of loving the object (as it has been pointed out that Kant said) “as an end rather than a means to an end;” the way that is described in this post. In the context of this phrase, the object of love is identified by it and claimed as beautiful. It could be like saying ‘we all know you separately, individually, but/and we all love you as one, the beautiful one that you are.’ Somehow, thinking of that saying that way just gained a lot more power for me in light of this post. Thanks, Todd.