What is love? Recently as I listened to a Christian radio station this same question was posed. Within seconds a lady called in and said, “Love is different, it evolves over time. What I considered to be love in the past isn’t what I consider love to be today. When I first got married things like affection, holding hands and cuddling was what made me feel loved. But not anymore, don’t get me wrong I still like my husband to be affectionate. But at my present stage of life, love is my husband helping clean the house and helping me deal with the kids. If my husband wants to feel loved in the evening he best help me throughout the day, because help is what I need.” As I listened to her answer, I realized that this caller perfectly stated the way most people view love, as a give and take. I will if you will but if you don’t I won’t.

For God so loved the world that he gave … – John 3:16 

From our Heavenly Father’s perspective, the primary focus of love is giving not receiving. God doesn’t determine how much He loves me based on my character. God determines how much He loves me based on his character. The, I’ll love you if you love me mentality is not the way our Heavenly Father loves us. He demonstrates his love for us when we deserve it or don’t t deserve it. Actually, He loves us even if we don’t love him. I don’t know about you but I don’t just want people to love me when I get it right, I also need them to love me when I don’t get it right. Oftentimes when I don’t deserve to be loved and someone extends love is when I most feel loved. But once again the primary focus is not receiving love but rather giving love.

There’s another side to this coin, this means that we should love others not just when they get it right but also when they don’t get right. The focus of our love towards others should not be contingent on how much we get but rather on how much we give. If someone has to earn our love then it’s no longer love but merely a give and take. Love is giving, just like our Heavenly Father who gave his only begotten son when we did not deserve it. It’s simple, we should not love people based on their character and we should not love them based on our character either. We should love them based on God’s character. If God could love them and send his son to die on a cross for them we should choose to freely love them too.