A sad commentary on American culture is its confusion regarding love, to the point that love has been flipped on its head to become its opposite!

Today, if you genuinely love, you will probably be called a hater, and many will declare that you are loving when what you say and do is actually destructive and deadly!

Because God is the Creator and is the very embodiment of love, (I John 4:8) He defines what love really is. Sadly, too many people have been grievously misled on the subject.

Genuine love is a devaluing of self, or as the Bible puts it, “dying to self.” The most common Greek word used for love in the New Testament is the word, “agape,” which stresses considering others more important than oneself and therefore sacrificing one’s own desires for the benefit of the one loved.

It is quite the opposite of our culture’s definition!

Because God created the natural world, we see examples of self-sacrifice in nature. Animal mothers regularly take on predators to protect their young and are at times victorious, but sadly, on occasion, lose their own lives in the process. We used to say that such love, the love of a mother, was the greatest love on earth!

And for that reason held motherhood in high regard. It was the impetus for giving them a special day, called Mother’s Day.

Ominously, such love is now scorned, and women are urged to seek “self-fulfillment” in a job rather than creating and loving a family! Millions of women have “sold their birthright,” so to speak, “for a mess of pottage,” and society is much the poorer for it. Tell me how a “career” will love and care for you when you are old and alone!

While day-care may be the only alternative in some cases, the wholesale warehousing of America’s children under the care of people who cannot possibly provide them the same love and care as parents is more than problematic.

Children figure it out early on when their parents unnecessarily invest more time and energy in a job than in their children. 

Women, in contrast to men, instinctively value people and relationships over things, and have, until recently, resisted the manipulations of the money-grubbing Left. It required decades of pressure from the media, Leftist academicians and politicians to persuade women to value wealth and “prestige” over people. There is an attractive ring to the word “career,” but it is in the end, just a job.

Again, the nation is much the worse as a consequence.

Christ told us, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” (John 15:13 KJV).

Though it is not stated in the text, it is a clear reference to Himself going to the cross to give His life for sinful mankind. But the principle holds true for us all. Genuine love is not “looking out for number one,” no matter how one spins it!

Rather, love is humbly serving and helping others, without regard to one’s own circumstances.

Genuine love also understands that truth matters. In the  same way that a person suffering from cancer needs the truth regarding his illness and the best treatment for it, so, a person “dying” spiritually from sin needs the truth of the plight he faces without Christ.

A doctor would be guilty of malpractice if he decided that the patient’s feelings were more important than the facts of his condition. We cannot imagine a doctor choosing to tell a patient with cancer that he was healthy, simply because he did not want the patient to “feel bad;” yet, today, people try to twist reality to avoid hurting people’s feelings with truth.

And they demand that we join them in their lying!

A person separated from God by sin is endangered by glossing over the issue. Because Jesus Christ has provided the means of reconciliation with God by His death on the cross for all who repent of sin and trust Him, the only loving thing is to speak the truth!

Inform every one of the problem, which is their sin, and of the grace of God which is available to wash the sin away!

That is love!

When you love another, you are patient with them, bear with their faults, “cover” their flaws, seek their well-being even in the face of great personal cost. Children with loving parents are naturally going to be emotionally stronger and will have a sense of well-being. It is not at all surprising that mental illness among America’s youth is at crisis levels at the same time that the adults in their lives are self-absorbed.

People, and especially children, are starved for genuine love, someone who will pour themselves out to provide what they need. But what society and culture are dishing out for them is leftover attention and self-serving lies.

The results make the headlines daily.

So, what about the Leftists also twisting the meaning of “hate?” If you point out that boys are boys and girls are girls, or state the truth that by adhering to the morality of the Bible you will likely live longer, healthier, and be happier, you are labeled a hater! Very strange!

To encourage people to live in a way that is more likely to give them a good life indicates that you have evil intentions? Very strange indeed!

The Bible uses the word “hate” in a variety of ways, but it does not always indicate an active antipathy. Whether active or passive, in the end, hatred produces negative or deadly consequences for the one hated.

God said, “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.”

Did He have an active antipathy toward Esau? No! In this interesting case, God’s “hate” for Esau only meant that God allowed him to live his own life, follow his own desires, and suffer the consequences of those choices without Divine intervention. On the other hand, God manifested His love for Jacob by intervening to correct, or as one could say, “discipline” him.

Jacob suffered the “pain” of God’s chastisement but became Israel, and thus the father of the Nation of Israel, God’s Chosen People!

When parents treat their children as God treated Esau, letting them make their own decisions, do whatever they want, never telling them “no,” or failing to punish them, it is akin to hating the child! That child may relish the “freedom” he experiences, but he will almost certainly suffer from insecurity and other issues; and such an upbringing will often, if not always have a dark down-side.

Love is manifested in caring enough for the wellbeing of a child to ignore his complaints and therefore stopping his foolishness to guide him in the right way.

Powerful cultural and political leaders demand that we love what and how they love and hate how and what they hate. But they have these two backwards. Their “love” is destructive and deadly, and they hate what is good and beneficial.

It is not easy or popular to go against the flow, but for the sake of the nation and especially children, more Americans must stand up and in love, speak the truth and resist the evil!

It may cost you and me to do so, but that is what real love does!

What will you choose?