Love is Action, Not Emotion

⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Yesterday we remembered the attack on Pearl Harbor.  This atrocity ignited  the “Greatest Generation” into action.  Don’t believe for a moment that those young Americans didn’t know fear.  Don’t think they didn’t know loneliness, thousands of miles from home in hot jungles or in freezing fields.  They aren’t remembered as great for what they felt, but for what they did in spite of those feelings.

Do you always feel like getting up for work in the morning? Do you always feel like fixing dinner? Did Jesus feel like climbing on a cross or setting aside Divinity for humanity? Why do we insist that love is a feeling? Why do we abandon relationships when we don’t feel “in love” any more?

When we are commanded to love like Jesus, we are not being asked to feel any particular emotion. Emotions can’t be commanded. It is action that’s required. There is good news here. Emotion can follow action. If we act in love, we begin to feel love. 

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that acts of love will necessarily lead to being loved. We don’t perform acts of love in order to be loved. We do them because He first loved (performed incredible acts of love) on our behalf. If you find yourself frustrated that your life of loving acts hasn’t brought loving acts in response, consider Jesus. You are not hanging from a cross, praying for forgiveness for those whose unloving response to your loving act, is killing you.  

Don’t grow weary from the hard work of loving the unloving.  It’s what He commands and that’s all we need to know.  Love in action is blessing in action. 

Love and be blessed. 

Nick