I listened quietly and carefully to the message, which carried the flavor of plain yogurt—its sweetness removed in an effort to temper delight. The words were measured, restrained, intentionally subdued. And yet they pricked me when the speaker explained that true love was chiefly a matter of choice—a volitional response, lacking emotion or natural affection. This, I was told, was God’s kind of love.
The explanation lingered longer than it needed to. And as it did, a question began to form.
I wondered how my children would receive such a definition if I offered it to them. What sense of value would settle in their hearts if I explained that my love for them was not rooted in delight or affection, but in obligation alone? I wondered what my wife might hear if I told her, I love you because I must, stripped of the tenderness that first drew me to her and continues to hold me.
Was God’s love so mechanical—so precise—that it lacked feeling altogether? Surely not.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
It hopes all things, endures all things, and never fails.
These are not the marks of something cold or distant. They are the movements of a living affection. Love is not only a choosing. It is a word filled with warmth, with nearness, with delight that does not fade when the choosing becomes costly.
It is not merely a term extracted from a Greek lexicon to assist comprehension. Detached from character, such definitions grow thin. Meaning withers when it is severed from the nature of the One it describes.
Perhaps those who quote love’s meaning would do well to linger first on God’s character—to consider His divine nature before attempting to reduce His love to explanation alone.
© 2025 Steven Scott. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized use or reproduction of this material is prohibited without written permission.