Love Is Attentive Helpfulness
When we love ourselves, we want ourselves to experience what is good. When we love another, we want them to experience what the Lord deems to be good for them. This is loving our neighbor as ourself (Gal 5:14). Thus, loving another involves us paying attention to what their needs are and doing what we are able to responsibly meet those needs. It includes anticipating what will facilitate their well-being and helping them flourish. Acting in loving ways, then, is not based on our emotions but on our choices. We don’t have to feel love for the other person to act in loving ways toward them. We make a choice to show love to them. For example, the Bible commands us to love others. Expressions of love must, therefore, be based on our decisions, not on our feelings. This is why Romans 12:10 (NJB) can urge us to express our deep affection for other believers in affectionate actions. If we act in loving ways, we will eventually feel love for the other person. Love is a series of choices to attentively help meet another’s legitimate needs.
Let’s look at how this love applies to marriage. In his book, Biblical Law And Its Relevance, Sprinkle points out the following marital duties the Bible requires for husbands and wives: showing marital love, providing sexual fulfillment for one’s spouse, being sexually faithful to our partner, cohabitation in a single household, the husband doing his part to provide for his wife and children’s material needs, godly rearing of any children born from the marriage, and the wife appropriately following the husbands leadership in the home. Doing these involves choices over emotional inclinations. It gives us many opportunities to both receive the love we need and to show the love we are to display. Yet, it also allows us to practice loving another human with an open hand rather than to desperately hold onto them as if they were God – the only one on whom we can depend.
Love is a series of choices to help another prosper according to God’s intent. It is attentively discerning, then appropriately tries to help meet their needs under God’s leading (2 Cor 8:5). Hence, we can learn how to better give and receive love. Being in relationships where we will sometimes be disappointed and hurt is how we learn.
Moral blindness reflects and further feeds our pride.