What does it mean to love and be loved? Sometimes I think we overcomplicate that. Analyzing how we feel from moment to moment, we forget that love isn’t primarily a feeling; it’s a way of living and being in the world. We don’t learn how to love through willpower or good intentions; we learn it through experiencing it, and we learn it through living it.
In one of my favorite scenes in Jerry Bock’s Fiddler on the Roof, the main character, Teyve, impulsively asks his wife, Golde (whom he’d married decades ago in an arranged marriage), if she loves him. “Do I what?” she responds, flustered. So begins a prolonged exchange that eventually leads to Golde conceding that if twenty-five years of working and struggling together and raising children together isn’t love, she doesn’t know what is! The scene closes as the two together soak in the wonder of knowing they’d been loved all along.
That scene beautifully reflects both the joy of realizing one is loved and an understanding that love is forged through the everyday ways we share life together. When we live for the good of others as we share our lives with them, then love follows and surrounds us, even if we don’t fully realize it at the time.
That’s a perspective on love that echoes the kind of self-giving love that Paul calls “the way of love” (Ephesians 5:2; 1 Corinthians 14:1)—a path that begins with realizing we’ve been loved all along. Christ’s sacrifice established that once and for all. And that changes everything.
That’s why when the apostle Paul taught communities of believers how to live together, he always began with a reminder of God’s compassion and love in Christ. You’ve been loved, he reminds them (Ephesians 5:1-2). We’re children who so easily forget what it means to love and be loved. So in Scripture we’re invited to remember—to over and over again remember what Christ’s gift has shown us about a God of love. And to do so together.
It’s worth remembering that 1 Corinthians 13’s breathtaking vision of love, so often read at weddings, was first addressed to a community, inviting and calling them to cultivate this kind of love—not just with one special person, but with the entire fellowship of believers with whom they shared life—with whom they were called to be one body (12:13).
Love is both a gift and a way of living—and it’s a gift and lifestyle we’re meant to learn to journey through together, with a community of those united in their experience of being the beloved of God. When that’s our foundation, we can learn to surrender the envy, anger, self-seeking, and self-protection that often drives us (Ephesians 4:31). That was how we thought we needed to protect ourselves before. That was before we knew we were loved.
When we’re “rooted and established in love”—when our whole being is filled with this “love that surpasses knowledge” (3:17-19)—then we can finally understand why love is “the most excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31), why nothing else matters (13:3).
And we can gladly and joyfully choose the grace and freedom of the way of love our Savior made possible.
Monica La Rose, Our Daily Bread
Read Also:
Discovery Series “Being Jesus Online”
Displaying the character of Christ is not always easy, especially in a society that promotes selfish ambition. Discover how you can become a channel of God’s love and kindness when you follow the example of Christ—the One whose compassion never fails.
Our Daily Bread Ministries in Indonesia is supported by the freewill offering of individuals in Indonesia, who through their gifts enable us to continue to bring the life-changing wisdom of the Bible to many here. We are not funded by any church or organisation.
