How can I know if I am in love?
There is a question you must know the answer to before you can answer this, and that is - what type of love?
English only has one word for love, which doesn't help the issue. Greek has four. A good marraige will have all four of these loves.
1 - Agape love: Selfless or sacrificial love. "Love is patient, love is kind.. (1 Cor 13:4-7)" Agape love gives of itself, and is unconditional. It is not contingent on the other persons behavior.
How do you know if you are loving with agape (Whether to a spouse or a neighbor)?: If you seek to honor them before yourself. When they do something wrong, you seek to reconcile and forgive. You do not seek to harm them, and you do not demand that they change or fix themselves. You leave their spiritual growth in God's hands, and seek instead to find ways to edify them, to show your care, and to help them. "What can I do today to make their day better?" exemplifies the mindset of agape, vs. Things like "what can they do for me?"
We should love everyone with agape love! At least, that's the ideal. It will be 'easier' to love those who love you back, but the principal of agape is to love the unloveable and to love even when people are cruel. As such, we love not just our family, friends, spouse, church brethren, etc - but the widows, orphans, our enemies, rivals, and so forth.
2 - storge love: Storge love is familial love. We have this in our relationship with God the father, Christ our brother, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, with our own families, with close friends and mentors that take on 'second family' relationships, and eventually with the spouse/family we will unite with.
3 - eros love: Chemistry, horomones, erotic desire. Eros love is important inside of a marraige, but can be easily corrupted into wrongful lusts outside of it (even for dating couples). There are more reasons to avoid deliberately cultivating eros before marriage than the risk of falling into sin, however -
Chemistry is the weakest bond of the four loves. Marriages with a foundation of chemistry are far more likely to divorce (even among Christians). A fuzzy period of horomones & hearts & butterflies sets in when a couple starts dating called the 'honeymoon period'. This can last up to a year. If a couple spends a lot of time alone, or encourages these feelings, then they are likely to be viewing each other through the illusion of endorphins and hormones. The honeymoon feelings help them overcome stressful situations with a lot more grace than they usually would, and put their best foot forward in general. To add to the false and inflated view of each other, people naturally get a social boost to charm, boldness, and wit when being introduced to someone for the first time.
Here is an example of eros love (before marraige):
Imagine then, two people that start dating shortly after they meet, having never seen each other outside of one situation prior to that (perhaps they know each other from school or church). The honeymoon period kicks in, and suddenly they can do no wrong. They each put the other on a pedestal and are enraptured with their new girlfriend/boyfriend. Hearts all around! Everyone can see by their lovey-dovey gushing and flirting that they are perfect for each other. They start introducing each other to friends and family, and again they come with their best game-face. What could go wrong? [This, in fact, is the worlds view of what love is- a hyper-horomonal set of feelings]. At six months they are engaged and six months later they are married.
Then, the feelings begin to fade. They can't understand why they can't recapture 'the spark'. They settle in to a somewhat unhappy marriage with a statistically high rate of divorce.
Conversely, those that wait until marriage to actively encourage eros (there will be some natural development before hand) will not have the problem of basing their romance on fluctuating hormones/ basing their marriage on the weak link of chemistry.
4) Phileo love - friendship, brotherly affection, mutual affection
Marriages that either started with friendship, or are committed to cultivating friendship along with romance, are far less likely to divorce than marriages blown about by the shifting tides of eros.
We have (or should have) affection for friends and for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
How then, do you know if you are really, truly in love (as far as, ready to commit to marriage?). This is actually the easiest part - you *choose* to love them! Preferably, you will already have a strong phileo love with this person. (If not, such as an arranged marriage - start nurturing phileo love). Then, you nurture agape love and phileo love day by day. After marriage, you can nurture storge and phileo as well. Some eros and storge will naturally develop along the way - this isn't bad, just don't feed it or get distracted by it into making bad decisions. All four loves need to be working together to make a marriage. If it's only one sided (such as just loving someone because they remind you of your dad (storge), or loving them because of the fluttery excitement you feel when you are around them (eros), then the relationship is unhealthy and may even fail.
Monday, March 26, 2018
How can I know if I am in love?
How can I know if I am truly discerning the Bible properly?
"How can I know if I am truly discerning the Bible properly?
1) "Let us discern for ourselves what is right; let us learn together what is good." Job 34:4 Your standard of morality and law will be God Himself. The Holy Spirit will aid in wisdom in weighing cases. This includes learning God's character, learning the rules of logic, studying God's moral laws, and meditating on the wisdom and advice found in scripture (proverbs, James, Ecclesiastes, etc).
2)"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in true knowledge and discernment, so that you may be able to test what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God." Phillipians 1:9-10 As we love God and our brethren and neighbors we will grow in true knowledge (relational knowledge with others, especially Christ). It is this true knowledge we gain as we love while abiding in Christ and partaking with the church that gives us discernment (vs. Simple head knowledge which leads to a fractured church, not a unified one). We then, from this spirit of unity and love, can test for what is best and ideal that the church as a whole may be blameless until Christ returns. Our goal is the love and growth of the church.
3) Pray for discernment and understanding (1 Kings 3:9-11). These allow us to effectually use our gifts, and to distinguish between right and wrong.
4) Use/practice what you know to be good. "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5:14
5) Don't quarrel on trifling matters, avoid godless chatter, and do not listen to those you know to be false teachers. (II Timothy 2:14-19)
6) Cut secret sins from your life, repent of hypocrisy, and do not deliberately deceive with or distort the word of God. Use it as plainly as you can, and this in turn will strengthen your own discernment and understanding. (II Cor 4:1-2)
7) Get into the practice of examining what you hear from teachers, books, and speakers and testing it against the word of God. (1 John 4:1, 1 Thess 5:19-22, Acts 17:11)
8) Scripture leads back to Christ. (John 5:39). This may seem pretty basic, but there are many books and teachings out there proposing new ideas or 'lost' methods of study. The first litmus test is always if the teaching magnifies Christ throughout, or magnifies its new teaching throughout with Christ as an incidental.
In summary: Love God and others, repent of sin, study the word, test what you hear and read against scripture, study general common sense and the rules of logic, pray/lean on God/ask for wisdom in all decision making, avoid trivial disputes, use the word as clearly as you personally can. While there will be times where you clearly know the Holy Spirit just gave you an answer or alerted you to something wrong, in general the Holy Spirit works by repeating to you the words of Christ, or by giving understanding, or by giving giving grace for spiritual growth. You will know you are discerning correctly not primarily by any feeling, but by how well what you have discerned reflects Christ and is harmonious with the Word of God.
1) "Let us discern for ourselves what is right; let us learn together what is good." Job 34:4 Your standard of morality and law will be God Himself. The Holy Spirit will aid in wisdom in weighing cases. This includes learning God's character, learning the rules of logic, studying God's moral laws, and meditating on the wisdom and advice found in scripture (proverbs, James, Ecclesiastes, etc).
2)"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in true knowledge and discernment, so that you may be able to test what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God." Phillipians 1:9-10 As we love God and our brethren and neighbors we will grow in true knowledge (relational knowledge with others, especially Christ). It is this true knowledge we gain as we love while abiding in Christ and partaking with the church that gives us discernment (vs. Simple head knowledge which leads to a fractured church, not a unified one). We then, from this spirit of unity and love, can test for what is best and ideal that the church as a whole may be blameless until Christ returns. Our goal is the love and growth of the church.
3) Pray for discernment and understanding (1 Kings 3:9-11). These allow us to effectually use our gifts, and to distinguish between right and wrong.
4) Use/practice what you know to be good. "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5:14
5) Don't quarrel on trifling matters, avoid godless chatter, and do not listen to those you know to be false teachers. (II Timothy 2:14-19)
6) Cut secret sins from your life, repent of hypocrisy, and do not deliberately deceive with or distort the word of God. Use it as plainly as you can, and this in turn will strengthen your own discernment and understanding. (II Cor 4:1-2)
7) Get into the practice of examining what you hear from teachers, books, and speakers and testing it against the word of God. (1 John 4:1, 1 Thess 5:19-22, Acts 17:11)
8) Scripture leads back to Christ. (John 5:39). This may seem pretty basic, but there are many books and teachings out there proposing new ideas or 'lost' methods of study. The first litmus test is always if the teaching magnifies Christ throughout, or magnifies its new teaching throughout with Christ as an incidental.
In summary: Love God and others, repent of sin, study the word, test what you hear and read against scripture, study general common sense and the rules of logic, pray/lean on God/ask for wisdom in all decision making, avoid trivial disputes, use the word as clearly as you personally can. While there will be times where you clearly know the Holy Spirit just gave you an answer or alerted you to something wrong, in general the Holy Spirit works by repeating to you the words of Christ, or by giving understanding, or by giving giving grace for spiritual growth. You will know you are discerning correctly not primarily by any feeling, but by how well what you have discerned reflects Christ and is harmonious with the Word of God.
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