Don’t be Deceived by Misguided Views of Love

Kelly McDonald, Jr.
“thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:18).

“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14).

When I was called into ministry in 2006, one of the first places I labored was college. College is a battleground for the minds of tomorrow. Presently, the battle is raging even more as political correctness seems to have taken its grip on many campuses.

One time I was talking to a young man. We were discussing God’s will for our lives in staying sexually pure.  He admitted that he was sleeping with his girlfriend. I tried to explain that God has a better way, but he said that he was simply “loving his neighbor as himself.”

The moment he said this, I was shocked. I could not believe that someone could use the Bible to justify such behavior. He then went on to say “isn’t love the message of the whole Bible?” I tried to explain that there were still standards as to how we define that love –and if its not in those definitions its not love. Unfortunately, my plea fell on deaf ears.

This incident highlighted a major problem in our country and especially the American Church. When we remove the commandments of God as a standard from our schools, churches, and institutions, people will define love as they see fit.

In Galatians 5:14, Paul explained that the law is fulfilled in loving our neighbor as ourselves. A few verses later, he then went on to explain: “19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Just a few verses after telling us to love our neighbors, Paul explained what behaviors are excluded from the definition of love. The fact of the matter is – we still need God’s commandments to help us understand love so that we do not become deceived by our emotions and lusts of our flesh.

The young man I talked to was simply deceived; we know satan is the deceiver. In the Garden, his first attack against mankind was to twist what God originally said and then slander his character.

We will continue this subject next time by looking at the chapter on love in I Corinthians 13.