The love conundrum

"If ye love Me, keep My commandments.... He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me.... If a man love Me, he will keep My words." (John 14:15,21,23).

The Law of love requires love in order to be kept; the Law is not a creator of love. We can't say that by being a good person, and keeping the Law, that we love.

So if obeying the Law doesn't make me loving, and not loving is breaking the law for which I will be damned, and I can't create love, then what's the use bothering with God and religion? 

What if some people don't have the love gene? What if some people are socially challenged? Yet, people judge us if we don't love. In every culture the world round, not loving, not being a friend, not being social, gets people ostracized real quick.

Since the day I was born, when people didn't love me then I didn't feel like loving them. But, that makes me a breaker of the Law. And if God doesn't love me, or if my perception is that He doesn't love me, then I don't love Him, and can't therefore keep His Law. And I think that that is what has caused the worldwide sin problem. We are born separated from God and cut off from His bosom of everlasting love.

Paul's terrible Romans 7 struggle to do righteousness was caused by this very conundrum. Paul just didn't know it. But by the end of the struggle he learned that love was the only cause of right doing. Once he collapsed into a hopeless reprobate in verse 24, then came his spiritual meltdown, and God had the opening, the "access" (Rom. 5:2), that He was waiting for. Now His son could learn the science of obedience.

Only by being loved do we have the incentive to love, and thus become enabled to keep the Law. As creatures we don't have the strength to love without being loved. Only God can love without being loved. But when we are born from above, then His Spirit is in us, and we can love like He loves--under all circumstances. His Spirit is so big that His love is "shed abroad in our hearts." (Rom. 5:5), and "we glory in tribulations" (verse 3), i.e. we have the grace to love enemies. 

We can love when we are hated. We can love when we are castigated. We can love when calumny is heaped upon us. Even our imaginary enemies cease to be a problem. People don't have to love us first in order for us to love them in return. God initiated the process. He loved us first. In the rebirth, and apart from all earthly relationships, the cycle of "you love me first, and then I'll love you", happened spiritually with God, who alone could cope with the inequity of it all. Now no human has to bear the curse of being the initiator of a relationship.

So, the question is answered: how does love come? By having possessions? Prestige? Being respected? Having a good time? Seeing beauty? Being comfortable? Being busy? Having accomplishments? Wealth? Health? Does love come from philanthropy? From service to others? Symphathizing? By offering to God "thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" (Mic. 6:7). And on and on we could go. But we all know deep down that love doesn't come from any of these things. None of them gives love. Love only comes when we are loved.

"Love for Christ was awakening in the [rich, young] ruler's heart; for love begets love." Desire of Ages, p. 519.

"Only by love is love awakened." Ibid. p. 22.

"We love Him, because He first loved us." (1John 4:19). We can't love Him until He first loves us.

Mother Theresa spent the last 50 years of her life dragging herself around to help others. She confessed to her confessors that Jesus wasn't with her, which left her in a deep depression. I believe that, despite her lack of connection, and therefore despite her less than perfect ministry for the lack of dwelling in God's love, she will come up in the great resurrection, glorying in her Saviour as she connects with Him face to face. She will be the first to cast her glittering crown at His feet.

 "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter [Jesus in Spirit], that He may abide with you for ever;... I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." (John 14:16,18).