I Love You…… Until I Don’t

It’s the season of love! Valentine’s Day is just hours away. It’s exciting and thrilling when you know someone loves you, and additionally to know that you love them in return.

I remember the day well when I first laid eyes upon the prettiest girl that I had ever seen. On a dare I asked her out thinking that she lived in an orbit so far beyond mine that it probably wouldn’t ever happen. But a dare is a dare, and a teenage boy should never back down in front of his peers. The rest is now history. This year will be 35 years of spending as much time as possible with her. That dare that I mentioned? That was two or three years even before we made it official and became a united team in marriage. I would like to believe that this is how love works. You fall so hard that it’s next to impossible to get up and to do things like you once may have done things. It’s permanent.

Of late, it seems that my way of thinking isn’t agreed upon by many. Love is wonderful they might say, however there is a slight difference. Our world is seemingly head over heels in love with someone, something, or shall I dare say even the church… until it isn’t. It’s a new kind of love that is written in stone until the day that it changes. And then? Tragically it’s stopped in an instant. We try to hurt and to punish others through the withholding of our love. We use love as a weapon.

Our world is so fickle. We will fight for that thing that we love until the day we decide to stop loving it, and then we just leave the relationship, organization, activity in a way that reveals so much. Not just about our true feelings and depths of love, but about our character and the depth or shallowness of commitment to that which we claimed to love.

My mind wanders to the times that I had heard well intended folks speak with passion about their love for the church and about their love for Jesus. Today, many are living where they are far from what He would want, and they have little or no time for the church. I think of the people that like Peter with voices filled with emotion tell me “Pastor, this is my church and my people” but this morning, if asked specifics I would have to say that the passionate speaking was just that, words shared in a moment of time that now mean nothing. Sadly, it has become a reality far too often, to find so many with such a shallowness of life that they find it acceptable to live with the motto of “I love you… until I don’t” as an acceptable thing.

I am glad that Jesus doesn’t see it that way. There have been so many times that I am sure I have disappointed Him. There have been so many times that I am sure that I have embarrassed Him. There have been so many times that He has probably wondered about my sanity. But of this I am sure, there has never been a time where He has ever said “ok, I have had enough. I think I will stop loving him now.” See the love that He has for me is indeed permanent.

Can I challenge you with these thoughts today? Love like Jesus. Those friendships that you have broken for petty reasons, go back and fix them. The family that you have cut off, reach out and talk to them. The passion that you once may have had for the Lord, ask Him for forgiveness and get back into fellowship with Him. You see it doesn’t take much to say no, to be harsh, to be the one that turns your back on things and people that you love, but it does take depth of character, dedication, and commitment to keep love alive.

Don’t be the one that is known for saying, “I love you… until I don’t.” Be the one that loves so hard, so deeply, with such intensity that it becomes contagious and is permanent.