ICS Daily Devotions
Love Others without Expectations
Romans 13:8 (NKJV) Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.
There is a common denominator in all relationships, and that is everyone wants to be loved. We expect to be loved because we give out love, but no relationship will last long if we operate in Phileo love because it is conditional. A couple in the early stage of their relationship may ignore each other’s weaknesses, but if they don’t take the time to deal with their differences and bad habits that irritate each other, the relationship will eventually be strained if they love with conditional love.
Though we like to think that we can change someone after getting married, the reality is we can’t. For those who have been married for a long time and are operating in conditional love, their love reservoirs may have dried up because every time there is a conflict, there is a withdrawal. Couples need to intentionally top up each other’s emotional reservoirs with unconditional love, which is part of our soul. If both parties are striving and working on loving each other with Agape love, which is unconditional, their relationship will only get stronger.
Everybody thinks they are giving love but loving somebody in our own love languages doesn’t necessarily mean they are feeling loved. Do we take the time or make the effort to find out the love languages of those we are supposed to love, or do we refuse to express love in their love languages because we want them to initiate first by finding out ours? Nothing will happen if both parties sit waiting, and if we love with conditions, we can’t expect changes to happen in our relationships. Applying Phileo love instead of Agape love in a relationship can deplete both person’s emotional reservoirs.
Loving someone includes going the extra mile, which means finding out their love languages. Agape love is the self-giving love that gives freely without asking anything in return and does not consider the worth of its object—it is a love by choice. Love the way God loved us, which is Agape love. There is nothing you can do or say, or have not said or done, that makes God love you more or any less—He loves you unconditionally. Because we are the children of God, it is also possible for us to love without expectations.
Jesus gave us a new commandment, which is not a choice, but something that He requires us to do so the world will know we are His disciples. God will be an unjust God if He commanded us to love with His Agape love without enabling us to do so, but we also need to know that it is an intentional walking in love towards people in and out of the church. Since it is a commandment given by the Lord, what we owe to anyone will be God’s kind of love, or unconditional love, because love fulfils the law.
Sermon Series: How to love? (Part 2)
