I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine, the other day, who is an atheist and is incredibly intelligent. This conversation was on the topic of love, and like all of our conversations I left challenged to go and find some better answers to some of the things that were stated in our discussion. The thing that bothered me to some degree the fact that my friend told me that Love does not exist. It is an emotion that is based around sex. A man or a woman want to have sex and so they say that they “love” one another when really they just make a statement that revolves around them wanting to engage in things that satisfy carnal desires. So, in his mind, love doesn't exist because the reality of love revolves around lust. “It’s not a real thing, it’s just something we say to one another in order to make one another feel like there’s a deeper connection other than just sex.”

To be honest, I wanted to give a theological response that included Augustine’s Mutual Love Theory, or Karl Barth Revelation Theory. Instead, I smiled and said, “Well, that’s interesting.” I was kind of at a loss for words because what my friend was suggesting made perfect since from a level that had no revelation of God. To the world, love is just a word that has no definition outside of sex. Sadly, sex and feelings is what defines truth for so many people and perhaps it applies to more than just atheists and unbelievers. I have found that it carries weight with Christians as well.

Love is such an emotional word. Even in my life I have said that word in the context of overwhelming emotion and connection to a person or an object. The word is thrown around pretty regularly in our vocabulary with very little regard for weight that such a word carries. Therefore it shouldn't come to any surprise that nobody believes in love because it’s just not real to anyone anymore.

The truth about true love is that it is the weightiest essence in the universe. John, the beloved disciple of Jesus said that it is the very definition of God’s character. So to understand love without engaging God in some way is impossible. Within the deepest understanding of who God is lies a better understanding for what love is and what loving really looks like.

I remember as a little boy asking my father what love was because I wanted to understand what I was saying when I said “I love you to someone.” My father never had a real clear answer for me. He just said, “You’ll know what love is when it happens.” That was confusing to me, but as difficult as it was to explain I think my dad was on to something. Love is impossible to understand because we don’t even have a clear view of who God is. Love is infinitely profound. It takes one’s mind, emotions, and spirit to engage it, and even then it exceeds the most eloquent of words. What we know about God (who is the essence of love) is that within His triune nature is perfect harmony and ecstatic joy merely from just being present with God’s triune self. That simply means that the God who is made up of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is so pleased being in one another’s presence that there is continuous beauty and joy that flows out of their union. No one is higher or better than the other. They lower themselves continually before one another. It is perfectly harmonious and beautiful. This is evidenced throughout the entire Bible.

Their love is so large and so profound that God said to himself, “Let us make man…” because that’s what perfect love does. It creates opportunities to love more. And despite the enormous rebelliousness and calamity that humanity rendered against God’s desire to love them, He has never erased us from His heart. His heart is passionate for us and is always pursuing after our affection.

Personally, I find this simply remarkable given the failure of a person that I am. Given transparency, you would know that I have failed often to love. You would learn that I often have no regard for God or for God’s heart. You would understand that I am selfish and constantly seeking self-praise. I am everything opposite of what God should want and yet I marvel at how passionate I am pursued by God. This is love, that God would ceaselessly pursue after a heart that hopelessly fails to acknowledge his Creator in a passionate effort to fill my empty heart with indescribable joy. As I grow deeper into my faith I marvel at the limitless distance that God goes in order to capture my desires.

I believe that these are the definitions that we are lacking when we attempt to understand love. Love is magnificently and blissfully impossible to understand which is precisely how God is understood. It is too vast to wrap our finite minds around, therefore one who truly understands love best is the person who just rests in God’s enormously loving arms wherein we contently abide and accepts the impossibility of His Love.

The reality of love lies within our faith and understanding of God. Anything less renders love as a petty, emotional feeling that is minimized to a definition of lust. My hope is that we take seriously the image of God, because therein lies the ability to enjoy the fruits that overflows out of God’s love for His sons and daughters. Marriage, parenting, singleness, sin, suffering, or salvation, all find value in the understanding of divine love that is true. The reality of love finds it’s source in the greater understanding of God’s image. Therefore a belief in God should never fail to unveil the reality of Love and how it interacts among God’s creation.