This world is not short of romance films with fancy dinner dates, luxury hotels beside the beach and expensive trips all over the world. Yes! Not to mention the popular Disney phrase, ''And they lived happily ever after.” But I can’t help but wonder where is the love in all of this?
A popular Disney movie depicted a beautiful princess who fell in love with a man who had a beast like appearance. He was abusive and controlling but somehow changed in the end. Another toxic relationship encouraging unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of love.
Hollywood has really warped our minds from a tender age to have an unhealthy and downright toxic idea of love. I don’t want to sound too religious, but I can’t help myself. What is the biblical standing on love? Why are we as Christians buying into this worldly form of love? Love that has become somewhat of “I'll love you when things are good and when I’m ready” instead of “I’ll leave it all for you!”
Biblical standings on love
Dying a gruesome, horrible, bloody and humiliating death was quite a subtle explanation by Jesus as to what our standard of love should be (Isaiah chapter 53, verses 3-5). What an incredible feat that was. Surely only God could have accomplished this. The bible is indeed the greatest love story ever told.
Jesus taught us that love doesn’t take, it gives (John chapter 3, verse 16). Jesus is the perfect picture of love, and I will say He is love personified. In a time of confusion and misinformation, God left His high throne and took upon himself a weak, vulnerable flesh and submitted Himself to torture and in the end death while still carrying His heart on His forehead. If love only took the easy way out, can love be love? Love suffers, it endures, and it never changes (1 Corinthians chapter 13, verses 4-7).
Christ love vs worldly love
I am more than eager to elaborate further on how Hollywood has totally watered down and added some extremely poisonous substance to the mixture. We hear about these famous love stories that brought tears to the eyes of many, but sadly they only made me cringe bad to be exact.
From the movie ''Twilight”, we saw our first example of an extremely toxic relationship when one of the main protagonists, Bella Swan, falls head over heels with this apparent troublesome man, Edward Cullen. He expressed the extent of his love by promising the death of anyone who hurts her. Wait a minute there! This was exactly what the Roman Catholic Church did to anyone that didn’t want to convert to Christianity.
This unbiblical and downright obscene idea of killing for love is purely hellish by my definition. Jesus died for those He loved, and never did He encourage anyone who followed Him to hurt those who caused Him pain. He instead asked them to love these very people (Luke chapter 6, verses 27-36).
This worldly standard of love has creeped into the minds and hearts of even the elects. Jesus sat with His disciples eating very simple, but nourishing meals. He will later be loved to the extent that they who sat with Him were willing to love Him enough to lay down their very own lives.
Prosperity love vs sacrificial Love
The early Christians were lovers of God. These Christians were ready to put it all on the line for the one they loved. Their endings were bitter and brutal, but they fulfilled the law of love. Like I said earlier, love can't be love if it was easy!
Jesus taught us to persevere in our sufferings and to endure it all. He made Himself a testimony to that fact. We often want to be comfortable, but love is not a comfort zone; it’s a cross. It’s blood, sweat and tears. Carrying a cross should be the picture of love, not this fairy tale king and queen in a big castle with all the amenities at their fingertips.
It’s the battle through hardship and remaining committed to the one despite the odds. You never stopped loving. It’s easy to love when things are good, but your test of love is how faithful you are when you feel like your whole world is crashing before you. Love is when the odds are stacked against you, and you go head first. This type of love is only exemplified by Christ, and no other love story can compete with that.
My name is Marko Dewar. I am a 27 years old from Kingston, Jamaica that recently moved to Chicago, IL. I am an aspiring author, mentor, and life coach. I received Jesus in 2017, and I have made a commitment to live only for Him. I became a young writer with Christian Today through recommendation from Darren Salmon.