COMMENTARY – There’s a reason your heart is on the left side of your body. Real love is liberal. It knows no bounds. It exists independent of everything that might attempt to challenge or subdue it. It is never earned, qualified for, or measured. If it is, it’s not real love, but something less.
Most of what we call love in our mortal experience is conditional. We receive it, or give it based on expectations. It is really nothing more than a business arraignment; You do as I ask, and I’ll give you love in return, and visa-versa.
What about God’s love? Many view it as free and unconditional. Others see it as increasing or decreasing according to our obedience. As God is our Father, the debate can best be answered by a simple analogy: for those of you who are parents, do you love your children conditionally? If so, what are the conditions?
The insistence by some that God’s love is conditional likely stems from the mistaken idea that His love somehow signals His approval. This may be the way our love works but God’s ways are higher than ours. God can love us wholly and completely while we are yet embroiled in mortal mistakes, deficiencies or even rebellion. He knows we struggle. Does He love us less for it?
Scripture tells us that “God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” Does that mean that people with sin are loved less? Haven’t we been taught to hate the sin but love the sinner? People and sin are two separate things, just as love and approval are two separate things. When we make ‘love’ and ‘approval’ synonymous, we put a price on God’s love. We turn love into something earned, something we must qualify for. Suggesting that His love is measured by our behavior makes us it’s gatekeeper, not Him.
I don’t know when the complex dilemmas of same-sex attraction, transgenderism, equality of the sexes and races, and many other pressing social inequities will be settled, but I am certain they can only be resolved through real, unconditional, God-like love. Feeling God’s unconditional love can help us let go of prejudice and in turn, reach out in love and acceptance to all of God’s children, no matter who they are or whatever their differences may be.
Real love is powerful, perhaps the most powerful force in time and eternity. Consider this singular power of love: love can fill the gaps when there are no answers, for love is more influential than knowledge. In a time of crisis, resolution is less about finding immediate answers and more about experiencing the reassurance of real love.
Conflicts are best resolved, not with knowledge per se, but in loving relationships, where the pure love of God is felt, for perfect love chases away all fear. It spreads its light over every dark corner and gives us something to hold in our heart when our mind fails us.
Much of the dissonance we see today in our religious attempts to navigate complex moral issues is due, not to God’s reprehension, but to the influence of men, and the interposition of their prejudice, confusion, and fear on others.
Our responsibility is to love and leave the rest to God. We look for solutions, or make ‘agreements’ that work for us…something we can accept based on our understanding, but do they work for those experiencing the conflict? Any meaningful resolution must work for them.
If we will set our judgment aside, and listen to the stirrings of our heart, we will most closely approximate the mind and will of God, and His love will become ours, thereby settling the debate and bringing us to the ultimate solution. There is nothing to fear in love.
Marc K. Ensign
Paradise