We use the word love for everything. I love that restaurant. I love this weather. I love that show. We say it so casually that by the time we get to the things that actually matter, the word has already been stretched thin. It has to carry the weight of deep, costly commitment, and we've been using it to describe a breakfast burrito.
So what actually is love?
I think love is the willingness to move toward someone at cost to yourself, with their good in mind, without requiring anything back. And the part we always want to quietly edit out is the cost. The nothing back part.
Because most of what I call love still has me somewhere near the center of it. I love people well when it's convenient. I'm generous when it doesn't cost much. I'm patient when I'm not tired. But that's not really love. That's just affection with conditions attached.
Real love isn't me-centric. It's caring more about you than me. It's making your good the point, not my comfort or my reputation. And the reason that's so hard is because everything in us defaults the other direction. We are, by nature, the main character in our own story. Love asks us to hand that role to someone else.
Nobody modeled this better than Jesus. Not even close.
You don't have to read very far into the Gospels to see it. Jesus moved toward people everyone else moved away from. He touched the untouchable. He ate with the people you weren't supposed to eat with. He forgave people who were actively in the process of killing Him. At every turn, His love was other-centered, costly, and given without leverage.
And then He was asked directly. What's the greatest commandment? His answer was not complicated. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39)
Two directions. Upward and outward. God and neighbor. The more we are oriented toward God, the more we find ourselves genuinely oriented toward the people around us. You can't really love God and remain indifferent to the people He made and loves.
What strikes me is that Jesus didn't just teach this. He lived it all the way to the end. The cross isn't a metaphor for love. It's the definition of it. It's what love actually looks like when it has nowhere left to hide.
So when we talk about learning to love well, we're not just talking about being nicer or more patient. We're talking about a slow reorientation of who the story is about. Less me. More you. More Him.
That's not a project we finish. It's a direction we keep choosing.
peace,
Nick
So what actually is love?
I think love is the willingness to move toward someone at cost to yourself, with their good in mind, without requiring anything back. And the part we always want to quietly edit out is the cost. The nothing back part.
Because most of what I call love still has me somewhere near the center of it. I love people well when it's convenient. I'm generous when it doesn't cost much. I'm patient when I'm not tired. But that's not really love. That's just affection with conditions attached.
Real love isn't me-centric. It's caring more about you than me. It's making your good the point, not my comfort or my reputation. And the reason that's so hard is because everything in us defaults the other direction. We are, by nature, the main character in our own story. Love asks us to hand that role to someone else.
Nobody modeled this better than Jesus. Not even close.
You don't have to read very far into the Gospels to see it. Jesus moved toward people everyone else moved away from. He touched the untouchable. He ate with the people you weren't supposed to eat with. He forgave people who were actively in the process of killing Him. At every turn, His love was other-centered, costly, and given without leverage.
And then He was asked directly. What's the greatest commandment? His answer was not complicated. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39)
Two directions. Upward and outward. God and neighbor. The more we are oriented toward God, the more we find ourselves genuinely oriented toward the people around us. You can't really love God and remain indifferent to the people He made and loves.
What strikes me is that Jesus didn't just teach this. He lived it all the way to the end. The cross isn't a metaphor for love. It's the definition of it. It's what love actually looks like when it has nowhere left to hide.
So when we talk about learning to love well, we're not just talking about being nicer or more patient. We're talking about a slow reorientation of who the story is about. Less me. More you. More Him.
That's not a project we finish. It's a direction we keep choosing.
peace,
Nick