Inevitable Motives

I was thinking about love the other day. Not just the kind of love where you get butterflies in your stomach or the kind of love that makes your eyes googly, but true love that can only be from God. Then I tried to think of some people in my life as an example that showed true love in their life, and it just lead me to some questions about myself and who I am. Do I really love others, like TRULY love others?
I thought to myself, “How many people truly love others?” How many people truly love their spouse? How many people truly love their friends or family? Like TRULY. Like what exactly does truly loving someone look like? Well if I go by the world’s standards… it doesn’t get too far. Perhaps, a shoulder rub without being asked here and there for your husband or picking up some flowers for your wife coming home from work. Or what about giving a homeless man a few bucks that were leftover from the twenty you broke from your lunch that day? Wow, that’s true love isn’t it? No, but really…True love. What is it? If you sat there and thought about true love long enough… how would you describe it? Not the love you expect from someone or the love you’ve known your entire life but true love by God’s standards.
I have been convicted lately of what true love is. I don’t think convicted is the right word there, but let’s just say the meaning of true love has been heavy on my heart lately. I don’t want to just try to love others ya know? I have questioned exactly what true love is. And all the while I thought I knew what true love was for years, I’ve exhausted myself in trying to love others, when at the end of the day I felt more confused because it didn’t feel right. Ah, that’s when I discovered true love doesn’t feel per se, and for one thing it doesn’t feel right. It goes against our sinful nature which is selfish desires and motives.
The evil within us seeks instant gratification (which is usually always from Satan: drugs, sex, alcohol, pornography, etc.) therefore sometimes the heart loves to be loved in return as a result of being the deep root of our motives. Romans 12:9- 10 says “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.” That hit me hard when I read that. I wish I could love others with genuine affection sometimes. To really love them and not pretend to because I’m supposed to love others as Christ does.
My question is, how do you really truly love others without having wrong motives in your heart? There are exceptions with some people when you truly love them and would do anything for them without looking for anything in return, but what about the lady behind the counter at the fast food restaurant that is rude to me or the man I pass by in the mall that I don’t think twice about? How am I supposed to truly love them and not just pretend? After all, isn’t that the entire reason Jesus was sent to earth to become a man; to lay down his life all for the sake of love? I guess love is a little more important than I thought.
To be loved. Is that all? Is that why there is so much evil and greed in the world? Is that where all the hidden secrets that are kept deep inside the hearts of man fester enough to explode into acts of injustice and complete brutality among each other? Just to be loved? I don’t care what anyone says, love really does make the world go around one way or the other. Good or bad. For example in James 4:1-4 it says, “What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong- you want only what will give you pleasure.”
I don’t know much, but I know that the word of God is infallible. It is truth.” I am the way, the truth and the life; No one can come to the Father except through me.” –John 14:6. With that said, considering that God is the word, and according to this scripture the word says that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and if the word is truth, this means all life comes from God aka The Word. That was said very confusingly, but my point is that God wants us to have an abundant life through Him and I want that as well. So, everything in the Word would probably be pretty beneficial to live by and that’s all I’m trying to do. I just wish I knew how to live by it all the time. I know I’m not perfect, but I serve a God who is.
These thoughts probably don’t serve any purpose, hope; encouragement or answer to anyone unlike any good writer who always concludes their thoughts with a sense of peace or remedy to the problem listed, but if anything find peace in that we’re all human looking for a greater peace than just a quick remedy.; A peace that can only be quenched by God, and that my friend is all we need, love that is, which don’t forget is also God. So basically we need God. End of story.