As I prepare to speak this week on Love, I find myself confronted with a plethora of opinions that contradict Scriptural perspectives on love. There are 116 million results returned by Google if you search for “Learn to love yourself.” I read through a few of the top results, and it grieves me deeply to see a repeated theme that roots the entire idea of “Love” firmly in narcissism.
Take, for instance, Leslie Karen Lobell writes atTheArtOfLoving.com,
I have made the analogy that, if you keep giving to others without giving to yourself, it is like pouring water from a vessel. If you pour and pour without ever refilling it, eventually, it will run dry. So, if we are like that vessel, how do we refill, recharge, re-energize, and replenish ourselves, so that we will have energy and love to give to others and to the world? The answer is: by loving and giving to ourselves, first.
In other words, we are the source of love.
Scripture clearly contradicts this idea in 1 John 4:7, which tells us that “love is from God.” Later on John writes “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 Jn. 4:10, NIV). At the foundation of the worldly concept of love lies the belief that we deserve to be loved, treated well, respected, etc. At the foundation of a Christian view lies the belief that we are sinners who deserve nothing more than the wages of sin, the penalty of death–and yet God loves us enough to sacrifice his only Son on our behalf, to pour out our punishment on Christ instead of us.
In clear contrast to Ms. Lobell’s analogy, 1 John 4 teaches that we are a glass devoid of all traces of true love. We cannot fill ourselves up with a love that we don’t have within us to begin with. However, God shows his love to us in Christ, pouring an endless supply of love into our life if we will only accept it. From that eternal spring we are then enabled to also pour out into the lives of others a love that originates in God. We cannot “run dry” when our love comes from God.
Thus, when we find in 1 Corinthians 13 that “love is not self-seeking…always perseveres” we can truly live that out. A “love” that originates in self-love dies when personal needs are not met, when the giver is scorned, or when will-power gives out. A love that flows from God’s eternal grace can never be out-paced. As much as we can ever attain to loving others, God is always there ahead of us, loving us more than we could ever deserve.
“Love” based in self-love reveals itself as selfishness when push comes to shove. If you come first before others, your love for them becomes an action you live out to prove to yourself that you are “good”, a secondary priority in a life designed around keeping yourself happy. If God comes first, love becomes a natural response to the undeserved favor he pours out on us. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 Jn. 4:19)
Where does your love come from?
Tags: divorce, God, love, narcissism
