When the Feels aren’t the Reals
“Feeling loved” and “being loved” are not always the same. In a perfect world, we would feel loved when we are being loved, but sin corrupts both our perceptions of love and our displays of love. We can often feel loved without actually being loved. Conversely, we can often be loved without feeling loved. When a parent disciplines their child, the child is being loved but rarely feels loved in such a situation. An attractive woman may feel loved when referred to in sexualized ways by various men even though she is not being loved but objectified. This is the confusion over love and its perversion that erupts in our culture over and over again.
Perception vs. Reality
The worldview dominant in our culture says, “If I don’t feel loved (accepted, welcomed, affirmed), then I’m not being loved. On the other hand, if I feel loved, then I am being loved.” The biblical worldview couldn’t be farther from this conception. The Bible defines love not by how we perceive it but by how it matches to the objective reality of God’s nature (Who Himself is love) and whether the person doing the loving is doing what is best for the one being loved—whether we like it or not and whether they like it or not.
Wherein Lies the Authority?
The problem between the world’s view of love and the biblical view of love has to do with the locus of authority. The Bible views love according to an objective standard of truth rather than a subjective standard of feelings. The culture’s view of love is subjective based on the recipient of “love.” The self and its preferences are the authority which define love (often changing with the vicissitudes of our feelings and circumstances). The biblical view of love is objective based on the character that God displays. For Christians, our authority must lie in the nature of God as revealed in His Word. How we feel about love (as the Bible defines it) has no bearing on what is truly loving but does tell us a great deal about the state of our hearts.
Purpose to Love Anyway
Understanding these distinctions helps us to see why the world often views Christians and Christian teaching as unloving. It also helps us to see that our attempts to love another might be rejected and ridiculed. We must persevere in our efforts to love others not as they would like us to love them but as God would have us to love them—whether we like it or not and whether they like it or not. After all, isn’t this just how God has loved us in Christ? “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8) We didn’t want God’s salvation. We didn’t care that we were sinners. In fact, we may not have even realized that we were in danger. But God, in his great love, moved towards us anyway. He did for us what we really needed (even if we couldn’t see it) at great sacrifice to Himself. Indeed, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Brothers and sisters, let us be willing to bear the shame of the world by loving rightly and loving well according to God’s standard not according to feelings and preferences of those who don’t even know what love is—yet. But let’s show them!
Doug Ponder does a great job summing up his article on this matter this way:
“In view of all this, Christians must no longer ask, “Does my neighbor feel loved?” (according to their standards) but rather, “Has my neighbor been loved?” (according to Christ’s Word). Or, to borrow a phrase from the apostle Paul, we all must ask ourselves: Am I seeking the approval of my neighbor or of God? For if I were still trying to please my neighbor, I would not be a servant of Christ (cf. Gal. 1:10).”
