Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Suddenly the whole world seemed different to you—flowers bloomed, birds sang, stars twinkled. During class you would doodle the other person’s name on your notebook, and whenever you saw them, your heart skipped a beat. Both of you would ride home together on the school bus holding hands, and then rush to call each other on the telephone—because, my goodness, it had been a whole five minutes since you last spoke!

Fortunately, most of us eventually discover that that’s not really love, it’s infatuation. However, the feelings which accompany it are so intense—and let’s face it, so euphoric—that we can’t help but desire to experience those feelings again. In short, the emotions that were involved the first time we fell in love begin to define every other time.

The Greeks had a word for this kind of love. They called it eros, and it was actually one of three words that they had for love (the other two being the sympathetic philia shared among friends and the merciful agape of God). Eros, though, was the most common, and it was used to describe any relationship that develops as a result of our needs and desires. It’s what we keep hoping will satisfy our cravings, and assuage our appetites, and ultimately fill the emptiness we all seem to carry around within us. It’s that love which is forever crying out, “I Want! I Need!”

Not so with agape—the love of God. Agape does not want. It gives. Agape does not need. It serves. Agape is not an emptiness desperately trying to be filled. It is already overflowing. Agape is patient, says Paul in 1st Corinthians. Eros is restless and moody. Agape is accepting and willing to endure all things. Eros stubbornly clings to its own agenda and accepts nothing less. Agape never ends, while eros—even in its noblest forms—ceases the moment the object of our attraction becomes unattractive. In a word, eros is something we feel and agape is an action we choose.

For the Christian, therefore, love is not primarily a feeling. When Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” he wasn’t implying that we should have warm, fuzzy feelings about them. If that were the case, he would be asking us to do something that we simply don’t have the power to do. You can’t manufacture a warm, fuzzy feeling anymore than you can manufacture a sneeze or a yawn. What he’s saying is, “Act lovingly. Choose to love the other person.”

Some of us might object, “But Jesus, I don’t even like them that much.”

To which Jesus would respond, “So what? I’m not asking you to like them, I’m asking you to love them. I’m asking you to act lovingly, not feel lovingly!”
The Apostle Paul says that, of all the gifts God has given us, love is the greatest. It is the most powerful force that exists. But to some extent, it is also the most powerless, because it can do nothing except by our consent. We need to decide to love. It’s not a feeling … it’s an action!