Thought for the Day 26/02/21 LOVE meh!

AUDIO

How did you read the title of this Daily Devotional today: 'LOVE meh!'?

Was it 'love + an expression of disinterestedness, lacking enthusiasm'?

Or was it read as a request 'love me' trailing out the long 'e' sound in the manner of American popular culture?

You see, the same word can mean different things to different people, and that's where the trouble starts, particularly with this here word 'love'!

The trouble with different definitions

And the trouble with having a number of different 'definitions' in circulation, is that you never quite know what is being said.

If a word can mean just what I make it, it's going to mean nothing at all

Lewis Carroll nails this issue in chapter 6 of Alice Through the Looking Glass

           ‘... there’s glory for you!’           
      ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
           ‘Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t–till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
           ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”, Alice objected.
           ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.’
           ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things–that’s all.’
           ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master–that’s all’

Alice's conversation (love her) was going nowhere at all, in a world where words mean something quite arbitrary!

So when it comes to what words mean ... 

Who IS to be master?

When it comes to measuring things, you need a standard that tells you what you're talking about ... so, for example, when the metre was introduced, it was defined as one ten-millionth of the shortest distance from the North Pole to the equator measured along a line passing through Paris

For practical purposes however, the standard metre was made available in the form of a platinum bar held in Paris. 

You wanted to know what a metre was? A curator in Paris could show you!

So WHO's got the measure of love?

You want to know where the standard for love is? God is the definition of love: it's His character, His essence, the root of His action and being.

"God is love" says 1 John 4:8

He IS it. 

Who is the Curator Who can show it to us?

"This is how God showed his love among us: 

he sent his one and only Son into the world 

that we might live through him." 1 John 4:9

So let's come back to the Standard's definition:

"This is love: not that we loved God, 

but that he loved us and 

sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." 1 John 4:10

What are the main components in the definition?

• Self - sacrifice for the loved one
  
  
• Giving as a principle - not taking
  
  
• Life-enhancing not exploiting or degrading
  
  
• Unconditional - not a reward conditional anything performance related in the receiver
  
  
• Defined by reference to God, Who is the very standard of love and of loving

The Point

We live in a world that's redefined the word love in its' own self-serving image. 

The standard varies and is deeply unreliable. 

It certainly doesn't often simply serve the one who receives it.

So in such a morass of linguistic confusion, do you want to know what love is?

Go to the Standard, which He has shown you in Christ.

The Takeaway

Words may shift and develop in their meaning.

Underlying realities do not drift with that tide.

Don't let the reality of love get distorted in YOUR thinking by the drifting influence of the world around you, because the consequences for life, truth and society of allowing that to happen are enormous.

And ultimately what defines love is relational ... we learn what love means daily, as we receive it from the hand of the Giver.