The Perversion of Love

Love.  A simple, four letter word expresses the most powerful human emotion.  According to the Scriptures love is wisdom and love is where we find wholeness, forgiveness, and healing – it is absolutely everything we truly want.  This is why is more than accurate to describe God as love (1 John 4:8).  Because he not only perfectly embodies these activities, but, in Christ, he never ceases to give us these love-like affections and blessings.  

Our version of love and our feeble attempts to love others pale in comparison to God’s love.  Sin has radically perverted our ability to give and receive love; so, rather than always giving, our love typically takes and hurts.    But the good news of Christ, our restoring and redeeming Savior, is that the heart and aim of the Gospel is to transform loveless, broken people who are lost to a world of perverted love (i.e., hate) into the lovers we were created to be all along.

Focusing mainly on the love to be felt within a marriage, Rob Bell does a great job deciphering between the perversions of love and the authentic love we made were made for in this older Nooma entitled Flame: